Pablo González-Herrero

Academic biography

    Pablo González Herrero earned his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Murcia (UMU, Spain) in 1998 under the supervision of Profs. J. Vicente and M. T. Chicote, supported by a national FPU fellowship (1994–1997). During his doctoral studies, he carried out short research stays at the University of Würzburg (Germany, with H. Werner) and the University of California, Berkeley (USA, with R. G. Bergman). His PhD work led to the synthesis of the first gold complexes containing hydrosulfido and trithiocarbonato ligands, published in Angew. Chem., Chem. Commun., Organometallics and Inorg. Chem., and later cited in the textbook Inorganic Chemistry by Housecroft and Sharpe.

In 1998 he joined the University of Würzburg as a Marie Curie Research Fellow of the European Commission and subsequently remained there for ten additional months as a contracted researcher. His postdoctoral research produced important results on ruthenium complexes bearing vinylidene, carbene, and carbyne ligands, reported in Angew. Chem. and Organometallics. In 2001 he returned to UMU with a postdoctoral fellowship from Fundación Séneca (Region of Murcia) and was subsequently appointed under the Ramón y Cajal program. He became Profesor Contratado Doctor in 2006 within the national I3 program and was promoted to Profesor Titular (Associate Professor) in 2010.

Upon returning to UMU, he continued working in Prof. Vicente’s group, focusing on the synthesis and luminescence of coordination complexes of gold, silver, copper, palladium, and platinum, including heterometallic and aryl-palladium derivatives. These studies, published mainly in Inorg. Chem. and Organometallics, supported three PhD theses whose graduates currently work in the chemical industry and academia.

Since 2014 his research has focused on the photophysics and photochemistry of cyclometalated platinum complexes, in which he acts as the sole corresponding author. He has supervised three PhD theses in this area, one of them awarded the prize for the best doctoral thesis in photochemistry by the Photochemistry Group of the Royal Spanish Chemical Society. His main scientific contributions include: (i) the synthesis and characterization of the first strongly luminescent cyclometalated Pt(IV) complexes; (ii) the discovery of an unprecedented photoinduced C–H activation mechanism in Pt(II) complexes; (iii) the development of photochemical cyclometalation procedures; and (iv) the identification of new families of luminescent Pt(II) complexes. These results have been published in J. Am. Chem. Soc., Chem. Sci., Chem. Eur. J., Chem. Commun. and Inorg. Chem.

He has extensive experience in the study of photoactive compounds, combining photophysical and electrochemical techniques with computational analysis of excited states. He regularly serves as a reviewer for prestigious journals such as J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem., Chem. Eur. J., Chem. Commun., Inorg. Chem., Dalton Trans. and J. Phys. Chem. Lett., acting as a frequent referee for Inorg. Chem.

His research has been funded mainly through national and regional programs, including excellence projects from Fundación Séneca (Region of Murcia). As principal investigator, he has led two Generación de Conocimiento grants from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) and one Investigación Científica y Técnica por Grupos Competitivos project from Fundación Séneca. He has obtained five positively evaluated research periods (sexenios) from the CNEAI. In 2025, he was promoted to Full Professor.