Clara López, Julia Martínez, Lucía Velasco and Adriana Barreto, winners of YOUMAT24

Image

The Material Science Institute of Madrid (ICMM-CSIC) has celebrated its II Seminar for Young Materials Researchers (YOUMAT24). This meeting aimed to promote communication and interaction between young people who are starting research in the area of ​​Materials Science, as well as to create a space in which these young people from our centre could discuss the results of their work with senior staff. The reception was a total success: more than 120 researchers congregated.

Eva M. Maya, ICMM's researcher, was in charge of the organization of the event. This year, the volunteers alongside her were Eduardo Bernal, Esther Benayas (both some of the winners of the last edition), and Nayara Méndez. They also got help from Javier Pérez Carvajal and Álvaro Jiménez, who talked to the young researchers about their career paths and then decided the winners of the two oral parts of the event.

As a result, Clara López García got the award for the 'Materials for a Sustainable World' part, directed by Javier Pérez Carvajal. López, who will defend her thesis at the end of 2024, entitled her talk as: 'MOF-413 and Ga7Ni-TCPP: Two new multimetal MOFs obtained by the use of messenger building units'.

Julia Martínez got the award from Álvaro Jiménez Galán, who chose her as the best oral communicator in the second part: Materials for Digital Information and Materials for Health. She talked to the public about her work on 'Magnetic hydrogels support neural cell culture development'. Finally, Lucía Velasco was awarded for her oral-flash talk: 'Tracking the structural and electronic configurations of Co catalysts for Artificial Photosynthesis'.

The volunteer team was in charge of selecting the best poster. This year, the award was for Adriana Barreto, who prepared a poster about 'Flexible energy harvesting devices: magnetoelectric BiFeO3-PbiTO3 thin films on nickel substrates'.

As well as the previous year, the event ended with a more relaxed round table with Javier, Álvaro, and Thomas Hermans, who went to the event to share his knowledge with the young researchers. All of them were able to speak about the future, doubts, and hopes and share some beers.