Strong embedding and a growing community

Garcia will join electrochemists Dr Ning Yan and Dr Klaas-Jan Schouten at the Heterogeneous Catalysis & Sustainable Chemistry group, giving her immediate access to state-of-the-art equipment and strong technical support with room for further growth. Her team will form part of the Research Priority Area Sustainable Chemistry, strengthening the RPA's efforts in electrosynthesis and electrocatalysis. Moreover, she will benefit from the facilities and collaborations within the Amsterdam Centre for Electrochemistry (Amcel), which includes researchers from the UvA, AMOLF, ARCNL, the Avantium Liquid Light lab and the Shell research labs in electrochemistry.

Amanda Garcia studied chemistry at Maringá University in Brazil and obtained her PhD in 2011 with Prof. Edson Ticianelli from São Paulo University on fundamental electrochemistry. From 2012 to 2017 she was a postdoctoral fellow funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in the group of Prof. Germano Tremiliosi at São Paulo University, developing the field of electrochemical biomass conversion. During this period, she also spent three months as a guest postdoc at the University of Poitiers and two years at Leiden University in the group of Prof. Marc Koper, working also in collaboration with UvA-HIMS as a postdoctoral fellow of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry. In 2017, she joined the European Union A-Leaf project at Leiden University for one year, after which she accepted a position at TNO, working on power-to-chemicals in collaboration with several industrial partners.