Professor Eduardo Peris FRSC

I did not consider chemistry until very late. Before going to university, I just knew that I wanted to make a scientific career. It was just when I saw the programs that the faculties of physics, mathematics and chemistry offered, that I realised that chemistry is a much more multidisciplinary science and that it combined physical sciences and maths, my favourite subjects at school. This is actually the reason that chemistry is often referred to as ‘the central science, due to its role in connecting the physical sciences with life, pharmaceutical and applied sciences. However, it was not until I started my PhD thesis as a graduate student at the University of Valencia, that I started to feel the passion of making new molecules. The feeling of making a molecule that never existed before on earth (or in the universe!), is just incredible, and if this molecule, designed with a precise structure and reactivity, can be applied for something useful, this is just unbeatable. I think that chemistry is the scientific discipline where the creativity of a researcher can be more easily developed.

Although I had the chance to meet many great chemists along my scientific career, If I had to choose one who left a clear influence in my way of approaching research, that would be Bob Crabtree, at Yale University. I think I never met a chemist with such a bright mind and such ability to solve complex problems with simple solutions. I always remember something that he told me once when I had a very unexpected (and undesired) result from one of my experiments: ‘weird results always hide the seed of an extraordinary discovery’. I always bear this quote in mind, and I often use it with my students.

The continuous excitement of discovery. The feeling that today we can obtain a new compound with unusual properties. Sharing this feeling with the bright and motivated members of my group.

I have many favourite elements. I have a particular preference for working with iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, gold and nickel. I think they are unbeatable in the fields of organometallic catalysis and metallosupramolecular chemistry.