Affiliation: University of Groningen, NL
Keywords: Sustainable catalysis, green chemistry, lignin depolymerization, lignocellulose, renewable resources and platform chemicals, bio-based products
Full profile:
Katalin Barta started her independent career at the Stratingh Institute for chemistry at the University of Groningen in 2013 where she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017.
Having lived and studied in 5 European countries, she considers herself a truly European scientist. After finishing school in Slovakia, she studied chemistry at ELTE Budapest (Hungary) and was also Erasmus research student at the University of Leeds. Then she completed her PhD (2008) under the supervision of Walter Leitner in asymmetric catalysis and ligand design at RWTH-Aachen, Germany. After, she carried out postdoctoral research (2008-2010) with Peter Ford at University of California, Santa Barbara and subsequently worked as Associate Research Scientist (2010-2012) at Yale University, the Center for Green Chemistry and Engineering (New Haven, USA) with P. T. Anastas. Her post-doctoral work focused mainly on the catalysis and renewable resources, including lignin valorisation.
Combining various fields, the research interests in the Barta group are broadly in Sustainable and Green Chemistry, focusing on the development of novel homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic strategies for the conversion of all main components of lignocellulose, utilizing Earth abundant metals.
Katalin is recipient of the ERC starting grant 2015, and the VIDI award of the NWO. She is funding member and secretary of the EuChemSoc division Green and Sustainable chemistry.