Prof. Maricruz Sánchez-Sánchez was born in Granada, Spain, where she studied Chemical Engineering. She moved to the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry in Madrid for her PhD studies. In 2010 she joined as postdoctoral fellow the department of Inorganic Chemistry of the Fritz-Haber-Institut in Berlin, and in 2012 she became Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Munich. There she completed her Habilitation in Technical Chemistry in 2020. In October 2021 she joined TU Wien Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering as Full Professor of Chemical Engineering.

Sánchez’ research in the field of heterogeneous catalysis includes studies of mixed metal oxides, acid zeolites and the combination of metal ions hosted in zeolites. She received the Jochen Block Prize from the German Catalysis Society in 2017 for her outstanding career as young researcher in the field of catalysis.

Maricruz loves music, books and travelling although her two children born in 2016 and 2018 have lately left her little time for these hobbies. To escape from the daily stress of a working mum she likes running and yoga.

The research fields of the Catalysis Design and Reaction Engineering group are:

-    Sustainable catalytic processes for the production of fuels and essential chemical building blocks
-    Novel nano-tailored materials with catalytic functions
-    Reaction kinetics and in situ spectroscopic characterization of solid catalysts
-    Alternative energy inputs and designs for catalytic reactors