Biography

- João Rocha (born 1962) is Full Professor of Chemistry, ex Director (2021) of the University of Aveiro Institute of Materials (CICECO, ca. 480 people), the largest Materials Science Institute in Portugal. He is the present Coordinator of the Council of Associated Laboratories, a bottom up organisation gathering the directors of the 40 Associated Laboratories, the main research institutes in the country in all areas of knowledge, representing ca. 10,000 researchers. João is member of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC), Académie Royal de Belgique, and Lisbon Academy of Sciences (Chemistry) (5 'Efectivo' Chemists), and Fellow of both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the ChemPubSoc Europe. He has received the Madinabeitia-Lourenço award from the Real Sociedad Española de Química, the prizes Ferreira da Silva and Romão Dias (Portuguese Chemical Society). In 2005, he received the prize for Scientific Excellence from the Portuguese Science Foundation and in 1990 a prize from Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 2012-15 he was member of the National Science and Technology Council (advising the Prime Minister).

- João got his Ph.D. in 1990 from the Department of Chemistry, Cambridge University, UK, working on solid-state NMR of kaolinite and related materials (supervisor Prof. Jacek Klinowski). This was followed by a one year post-doc (NMR of zeolite-type materials) in the same group. He has been in the Chemistry Department, Aveiro University, since mid 1991. In 1999 he was promoted to Full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry.

- He has published >550 SCI papers and 25 book chapters, with Google Scholar ca. 30,000 citations, h-index 82 (Scopus, respectively, ca. 25,000 and 73), ranks 25,848 among the 100,000 top (2%) World scientists (https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktz) and 5 patent applications, and gave over 250 invited talks at conferences (mostly international, see selected list: http://www.ciceco.ua.pt/files/selected_talks_2015_2019.pdf). He has supervised 43 post-docs and 36 PhDs. He has coordinated over two dozens projects (6 European), and consulted for industry.

- He was Chair of the 'Commission on Inorganic and Mineral Structures' and consultant of the 'Commission on NMR Crystallography and Related Methods' of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). He was Chair of the editorial board of European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry and on editorial board of Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, and is member of the editorial boards of Chemistry - a European Journal, and Solid State Sciences, and editor of the RSC Nanoscience and Nanotechnology book series.

- He coordinated the 2021 and 2023 European Research Council Consolidator Grants panel PE11, and has been member of the evaluation panels of IBM prize Portugal, ANR and HCERES (France), and has also reviewed projects and assessed research groups for France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, UK, Austria. He is regularly called upon by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) to coordinate the panel awarding post-doc and Ph.D. grants in Materials Science and Engineering, and in 2003 he headed the panel (of foreign scientists) that evaluated the Portuguese Materials Science and Engineering research groups. He has been a regular referee for the leading journals in Chemistry, Materials Science and NMR, such as Nature Chemistry, Angewandte Chemie, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Advanced Materials, Chemistry of Materials, Journal of Magnetic Resonance and Solid State NMR.

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS
For 30 years João's group has been interested in the synthesis of framework microporous and layered materials (ca. 100 novel Ti, Zr, V, Nb, Cu, Sn, Ca, Y, Ce and other Ln silicates - AV and AM materials), in the form of powders, membranes and films. We have explored applications in luminescence, catalysis, gas sorption and separation, ion exchange, magnetism and as MRI contrast agents. We are also much interested in the synthesis, structure and properties of Metal Organic Frameworks of transition metals and lanthanides. Recently, we became interested in developing electrically conductive MOFs for batteries. We are also developing photoresponsive crystalline organic-inorganic hybrid ferroelectric materials with a high Curie temperature (423 K), paving the way for accomplishing multiple-state ferroelectric memories, optical switches, and various optoelectronic devices. The group is particularly strong in powder XRD and solid-state NMR spectroscopy, and has pioneered the development of certain techniques for the study of quadrupolar (I>1/2) nuclei, and 1H. Recently, we developed interest in the area of biologically-relevant materials, in particular materials to treat hyperkalemia (excess K+ in serum), for slow release of drug molecules (NO), new MRI contrast agents and nanostructures for bimodal (MRI, optical) imaging. Nano-thermometry and nano-heather-thermometer platforms are also a present interests.