Beatriz Roldán Cuenya (born 1976 in

Oviedo Oviedo () or Uviéu (Asturian language, Asturian: ) is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain and the administrative and commercial centre of the region. It is also the name of the municipality that contains th ...

) is a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

working in

surface science Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid– gas interfaces, solid– vacuum interfaces, and liquid– gas interfaces. It includes the ...

and

catalysis Catalysis () is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quick ...

. Since 2017 she has been director of the Department of Interface Science at the Fritz Haber Institute of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Germany. Since April 2023, she has also been interim director of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry, also at the Fritz Haber Institute.

Professional career

Roldán Cuenya studied at the

University of Oviedo The University of Oviedo (, Asturian: ''Universidá d'Uviéu'') is a public university in Asturias (Spain). It is the only university in the region. It has three campus and research centres, located in Oviedo, Gijón and Mieres. History Th ...

in Spain and received her doctorate degree from the

University of Duisburg-Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen () is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally ...

in Germany under the supervision of Werner Keune. As a postdoc she worked at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

in the group of Eric McFarland and subsequently became professor at the

University of Central Florida The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public university, public research university with its main campus in unincorporated area, unincorporated Orange County, Florida, United States. It is part of the State University System of Florida. ...

Orlando Orlando commonly refers to: * Orlando, Florida, a city in the United States Orlando may also refer to: People * Orlando (given name), a masculine name, includes a list of people with the name * Orlando (surname), includes a list of people wit ...

(USA). In 2013, she accepted a Chair Faculty position in Solid State Physics at the

Ruhr University Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began ...

in Germany. She holds two roles at the Fritz Haber Institute - since 2017 as Director of the Department of Interface Science, and since April 2023 as interim Director of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry. Her main research interests are the synthesis of

nanostructure A nanostructure is a structure of intermediate size between microscopic and molecular structures. Nanostructural detail is microstructure at nanoscale. In describing nanostructures, it is necessary to differentiate between the number of dimen ...

d materials with tunable surface properties and the experimental investigation of structure-reactivity relationships in thermal and electro-catalysis using ''

in situ is a Latin phrase meaning 'in place' or 'on site', derived from ' ('in') and ' ( ablative of ''situs'', ). The term typically refers to the examination or occurrence of a process within its original context, without relocation. The term is use ...

'' and ''operando'' methods. Applications of her work are in the areas of

environmental remediation Environmental remediation is the cleanup of hazardous substances dealing with the removal, treatment and containment of pollution or contaminants from Natural environment, environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment. Remediation may be ...

and energy conversion.

Awards and distinctions

* 2005 NSF-CAREER Award of the American

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

* 2009 Peter Mark Memorial Award,

American Vacuum Society AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing (formally the American Vacuum Society, Inc.) is a professional and scientific society founded in 1953 as a committee on vacuum technology. The AVS supports networking among its ...

* 2009 University of Central Florida, Research Incentive Award * 2016 Fellow of the Max Planck Society at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion (

Mülheim Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr (, ; ; ) and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is ho ...

, Germany) * 2016

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

Consolidator Award *2020 Elected Member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

, the Academy of Europe *2021 ISE-

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

Prize for Experimental Electrochemistry of the

International Society of Electrochemistry The International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) is a global scientific society founded in 1949. The Head Office of ISE is located now in Lausanne, Switzerland. ISE is a Member Organization of IUPAC. The Society has now more than 1900 Individua ...

(ISE) *2022 Paul H. Emmett Award from the North American Catalysis Society for Fundamental Catalysis

Publications

* I. Zegkinoglou, A. Zendegani, I. Sinev, S. Kunze, H. Mistry, H. S. Jeon, J. Zhao, M. Hu, E. E. Alp, S. Piontek, M. Smialkowski, U.-P. Apfel, F. Körmann, J. Neugebauer, T. Hickel, B. Roldan Cuenya: ''Operando phonon studies of the protonation mechanism in highly active hydrogen evolution reaction pentlandite catalysts'', JACS 2017, 139, 14360, * H. Mistry, Y. Choi, A. Bagger, F. Scholten, C. Bonifacio, I. Sinev, N. J. Divins, I. Zegkinoglou, H. Jeon, K. Kisslinger, E. A. Stach, J. C. Yang, J. Rossmeisl, B. Roldan Cuenya: ''Enhanced carbon dioxide electroreduction to carbon monoxide over defect rich plasma-activated silver catalysts'', Angew. Chem. 2017, 56, 11394, * H. Mistry, A. Varela, C. S. Bonifacio, I. Zegkinoglou, I. Sinev, Y.-W. Choi, K. Kisslinger, E. A. Stach, J. C. Yang, P. Strasser, B. Roldan Cuenya, ''Highly selective plasma-activated copper catalysts for carbon dioxide reduction to ethylene'', Nature Commun. 2016, 7, 12123, .

References

External links

Department of Interface Science of the Fritz Haber Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roldan Cuenya, Beatriz Living people Max Planck Society people 1976 births Spanish physicists Members of Academia Europaea Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina University of Oviedo alumni University of Duisburg-Essen alumni Academic staff of Ruhr University Bochum Max Planck Institute directors People from Oviedo Physical chemists University of Central Florida faculty Women chemical engineers