Dr. Ying Pan is now a postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Jun. Prof. M. Nieves Lopez Salas in the Department of Chemistry at Paderborn University. She obtained her Ph.D. degree from the University of New South Wales (UNSW, Sydney). Her research interests mainly focus on the synthesis of different catalysts, including metal-based materials, carbonaceous materials, and metal/carbonaceous composites, as well as exploring the application of these materials into electrocatalysis and photocatalysis.​

Umar Irshad is a DAAD-funded Doctoral Researcher in the Sustainable Materials Chemistry Research Group at the Universität Paderborn, supervised by Jun. Prof. M. Nieves Lopez Salas. He holds a Master’s and bachelor’s in chemical engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan, where he was consistently on the Dean’s Honor List. His research focuses on synthesizing sustainable materials, such as hetero-doped carbonaceous compounds, for energy and environmental applications. Before moving to Germany, Umar worked on a Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan-funded project utilizing power plant waste for cost-effective CO₂ capture and developed a small-scale packed bed adsorption setup for pollutant gas remediation. Passionate about sustainable development, he has joined his current research group to advance his studies and will work and explore more of the interactions between electrolytes and solid carbonaceous material for better electrochemical performance.

Irene Lamata obtained her chemistry degree at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. During her undergradute studies she took part in the erasmus + programme and spent her last year at the university of Ostrava, Czech Repulic, where she carried out a reasearch project in carbon materials. She wanted to continue growing her knowledge in materials and in 2021, she moved to Seville to get her Master´s degree in Material Science by the University of Seville. While she was doing her masters thesis, she worked as a reasercher  at the biomimetic and multifunctional materials group, where she dived deeper into carbonaceous materials. She found the topic very exciting and decided to come to Germany to work in the Sustainable Materials Group as a PhD student! She will study the the interactions between liquids and carbonaceous materials by solid state NMR.

Alexandra Glass is a doctoral student in the group Sustainable Materials Chemistry. Already during her high school time, she was fascinated about all topics she was taught in the chemistry class. Her interest to study chemistry at a university was encouraged by her teachers which led her to Paderborn University. After completing the Bachelor of Chemistry in Paderborn she switched to Materials Science for the master’s degree to broaden her knowledge on materials in general, but still holding a focus on chemistry with the offered elective courses. She concluded her master’s degree with a thesis on (near-ambient pressure) XPS studies of metal oxides under the supervision of Dr. Christian Weinberger and PD Dr. Teresa de los Arcos de Pedro. To broaden her knowledge on materials even further, she applied for the position in the group of Jun. Prof. Nieves Lopez Salas to work on sustainable carbonaceous materials and study them with near-ambient pressure XPS.

(Jennie) Jie Zhang is a PhD student in the Sustainable Materials Chemistry group under the supervision of Jun. Prof. M. Nieves Lopez Salas. She got the master’s degree in chemical engineering from China University of Petroleum, Beijing (CUPB), where she developed a strong interest in Materials Chemistry and Electrochemistry. Her master’s research focused on functional materials used in solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) for hydrogen production as well as CO₂-H₂O co-electrolysis for CO₂ reduction. She has over 11 years of professional experience as a chemical process engineer and technology consultant, specializing in advanced materials, energy conversion, and gas purification technologies. This interdisciplinary background enhances her current research into sustainable and green chemistry solutions. Her PhD work focuses on the synthesis and catalytic performance of porous carbonaceous materials for applications in CO₂ reduction reactions (CO₂RR), water splitting, and related electrochemical processes.

Bernard Dawai is a DAAD fellow doctoral student in the Sustainable Materials Chemistry Research Group at the University of Paderborn, supervised by Jun. Prof. M. Nieves Lopez Salas. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with a minor in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Bamenda (Cameroon). He also holds a Master's degree in Inorganic Chemistry with a specialty in Materials Chemistry from the University of Dschang (Cameroon). Passionate about sustainable materials for renewable energy applications, he joined his current research group and will work on designing and developing Z-scheme heterostructure materials composed of MOFs, COFs, Metal oxides, and g-C₃N₄, understanding their structure-property-function relationships and their applications in hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide production via water splitting.