IQTC Women: Silvia Gómez Coca
Silvia Gómez Coca obtained her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry (2007) from the University of Alicante, and the Master’s degree (2010) and the PhD (2013) in Chemistry at the Inorganic Chemistry Department of the Universitat de Barcelona, under the supervision of Prof. Eliseo Ruiz Sabín. She worked principally on molecular magnetism and supramolecular chemistry. Since the PhD, she has always combined computational and experimental chemistry with the aim of expanding her findings into different areas of chemistry, physics and biology. After her PhD, she spent more than three years abroad as a postdoctoral researcher: 16 months (2015-2016) in the experimental group of Prof. Kim Dunbar at Texas A&M University (USA), working on molecular magnetism and supramolecular chemistry, and 26 months (2016-2018) in the group of Dr. Edina Rosta at King’s College London (UK), working on the study of large systems, different proteins, and supramolecular complexes, using QM/MD and MD approaches. She also performed a couple of months postdoctoral research stay working on molecular electronics at King’s College London (UK) with Dr. Ismael Diez-Perez (2018).
At the end of 2018 she returned to the University of Barcelona with a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral fellowship (2018-2021) and she is now Lecturer at the Organic and Inorganic Department.
Her main research interests include the fields of molecular magnetism, supramolecular chemistry, biocatalysis and molecular electronics, and she uses inorganic, coordination and computational chemistry as tools to unanswered questions in these fields. Her more impactful papers are in the field of molecular magnetism; in particular in the study of Single Molecule Magnets: molecules that are able to behave as magnets at single molecule level. These molecules are promising candidates for different digital technologies, such as quantum computing or device miniaturization. Their advantage is that their properties can be tuned using chemistry. However, more control and understanding of the different mechanisms for the relaxation of the spin in these molecules is still needed; part of Silvia’s research targets this.
Silvia’s favorites activities during her leisure time are walking in the city, enjoying the sun, Polynesian dances, DIY and craft projects and board games.