3rd Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry Europe Conference

Despina Solomonidou has more than 25 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry, which spans drug development, strategy, portfolio management, and organizational development. She started her career at Novartis Technical Research & Development (TRD) in 2000. Since then, she has held senior leadership positions in Development and Novartis Oncology, including cross-divisional roles with Novartis Operations and Biomedical Research.

In her present role as Head TRD, she leads the global TRD organization that is responsible for the technical development of the Novartis pipeline assets, including Small Molecules, Biologics, Cell & Gene Therapies as well emerging therapeutic modalities such as xRNA, and radioligand therapeutics (RLT). TRD comprises scientists and engineers across Europe US, India, China and Japan who bring science and innovation to the design of patient-centric pharmaceutical products, the development of robust and efficient manufacturing processes, as well packaging and device solutions.

Despina obtained her PhD in Pharmaceutics & Biopharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Despina is recognized for her ability to develop successful strategies and to build sustainably high-performing teams that drive scientific advances and business growth, across Europe, U.S. and Asia. She is passionate about coaching and mentoring female scientists and next generation leaders. Further, Despina is a faculty board member of the FHNW Life Sciences in Switzerland, and a member of the German Pharmaceutical Association (APV) as well the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences (AAPS).

Elena Braconi was born in Osimo, Italy. She obtained both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemistry from the University of Camerino, Italy.

Pursuing her passion for advanced chemical research, in 2017 Elena moved to Switzerland to pursue a Ph.D. in the Laboratory of Asymmetric Catalysis and Synthesis led by Prof. Nicolai Cramer at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Her work focused on developing novel chiral catalysts based on Earth-abundant metals to promote asymmetric cycloaddition reactions.

After completing her Ph.D., in 2021 Elena transitioned into industry, joining Syngenta Crop Protection AG as a Postdoctoral researcher in the Process Chemistry department based in Stein, Switzerland. She dedicated her efforts to developing sustainable processes for the synthesis of valuable scaffolds for crop protection. In this role, she embraced cutting-edge technologies including high-throughput experimentation, automation and machine learning.

In 2023, Elena was promoted to the position of Team Leader in the Process Development department based in Münchwilen, Switzerland, where she leads a team of three laboratory assistants. In this role, Elena is responsible for developing efficient, sustainable, and scalable processes for the synthesis of active ingredients and intermediates. Her team’s primary objective is to ensure these processes are ready for commercial production and market introduction.

Alba was born in Cuenca (Spain) and raised in several cities around Spain starting from the inner part to Castellón in the Mediterranean Sea where she has spent most of her life. She got both her Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry (2016) and Master’s Degree at the University Jaume I (2017). During her Master’s Degree Alba studied the use of Iridium and Ruthenium complexes as an efficient system for the production of hydrogen for energy storage coupling of hydrosilanes with alcohols under the supervision of the Prof. Jose A. Mata Martinez. After that, she carried out her PhD within the multi-partner Marie-Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Innovative Training Network (ITN) European Joint Doctorate (EJD) “Catalytic Methods for Sustainable Synthesis”. A Merged Experimental and Computational Approach (CATMEC). With this program, she obtained a double PhD degree from Stockholm University in Sweden under the supervision of Prof. Belén Martín Matute and from the University of the Basque Country in Spain under the supervision of Prof. Enrique Gomez Bengoa. Her research was focused in computational and experimental investigations used to drive the reactivity of enol and allylic substrates towards new transformations. Additionally, she worked on the synthesis of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and their use in catalytic organic reactions. After her PhD thesis (2022) she wanted to continue with her professional career in data driven science applied to organic chemistry. Alba was awarded a fellowship from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), which allowed her to spend a period abroad under the supervision of Prof. Sarah E. Reisman. She is now back in Sweden, completing her postdoctoral experience at KTH under the supervision of Prof. Mårten Ahlquist.

Sarah is Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of HydRegen, and has a passion for innovation and sustainability. She earned her PhD in chemistry from the University of Vermont (USA), focusing on synthetic organic chemistry in Prof. Matthias Brewer’s group. She did a postdoc in Prof. Kylie Vincent’s group at the University of Oxford, where she brought biocatalytic hydrogenation technologies from the innovation and proof-of-concept phase through to industrial-readiness. Sarah, alongside Dr Holly Reeve and Prof. Vincent, co-founded HydRegen in 2021 in order to commercialise these biocatalyst technologies. Her role as CSO involves managing the chemistry team, setting R&D strategy and priorities, building relationships with customers, and identifying new technologies and opportunities. As a leader, she is inspired by HydRegen’s core values: collaboration, safety, respect, and productivity.

Aífe is from County Kildare in Ireland and received her B.A. in Medicinal Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin in 2020. She then spent a year at the University of St Andrews where she completed an Msc by research in the group of Prof. Andrew D. Smith working on asymmetric organocatalytic [2+2] cycloadditions. In 2022 she began her PhD studies at the University of Manchester as part of the ICAT CDT, and her current work focuses on skeletal editing of heteroarenes under the supervision of Prof. Michael F. Greaney.

Simona Cotesta obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from ETH Zurich in 2002, focusing on protein flexibility using molecular dynamic simulations. She then worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the molecular modeling groups of GSK, Pharmacia, and Roche from 2002 to 2005. In 2005, she joined Novartis’ Computer Aided Drug Discovery (CADD) team in Basel. Since 2015, she has served as a chemistry project team leader in Oncology. From 2022 to 2024, she led a group at the intersection of CADD and chemistry within Novartis’ Global Discovery Chemistry team. Since September 2024, she has been leading the Global Disease Area Exploratory (DAx) chemistry group at Novartis.

Allegra was trained in asymmetric catalysis, particularly using transition metals and bifunctional ligands, both during her BSc and MSc degrees at the University of Milan (Gennari–Pignataro group), with an Erasmus semester at RWTH Aachen, and her MSCA PhD studies at the University of Oxford under the guidance of Prof. Darren Dixon (2013–2017). After a brief stint in industry, she joined the Echavarren group at ICIQ, Spain, supported by a 3-year MSCA COFUND fellowship, to work on gold and H-bond donor catalysis. She then spent a year in the Morandi lab at ETH Zurich, focussing on skeletal editing of N-heterocycles and iron catalysis for amination reactions.​

Since September 2022, Allegra has been Assistant Professor in Organic Chemistry at Durham University. Her group works on merging transition-metal catalysis, organocatalysis, ligand design and data science for the stereoselective synthesis of added-value compounds. Since joining Durham, she has secured over 1.8m€ in funding as a PI, including a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

Laura Guasch obtained her Ph.D. in 2011 at the University Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain, with a focus on computational approaches for targets related to metabolic diseases. She later conducted postdoctoral research at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, developing cheminformatic tools for tautomerism. In 2015, she joined BenevolentAI in London,contributing to their AI-driven proprietary platform. In 2018, Laura joined the Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) group at the Roche Innovation Center in Basel, supporting oncology and neuroscience portfolio projects. She also continuously develops workflows for data analysis and compound design in macrocyclic peptides and DNA-Encoded Library technology.

Constanze Hartwieg has been with Novartis for 25 years, currently serving as an Associate Director in Global Discovery Chemistry. She studied Chemistry at the University of Konstanz, Germany, and obtained her PhD in 1999 from the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich. After completing her postdoc at Novartis in combinatorial chemistry, she has been working in SynTech, focusing on scale up of organic syntheses at the interface between research and development and in collaboration with external partners.

Dr. Anne Jones is a Senior Customer Success Manager responsible for account management and support for all CAS business in the UK and Ireland. She is based in Cambridge, UK, and has been with CAS for 15 years.

Anne began her career as a scientific information professional, holding positions at Bayer CropScience and Astex Technology. She later established and ran AJPatents, a patent search company, where she conducted patentability, infringement, and freedom to operate (FTO) patent searches, along with general bibliographic research projects.

Anne holds a PhD in Physical Organic Chemistry from the University of Hertfordshire.

Ilaria is a chemical scientist by background and is the Senior Programme Manager for Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Before moving to her current role, Ilaria spent several years working closely with the RSC chemistry community, to enable collaborations across researchers, industry representatives, policymakers and funding bodies on areas such as sustainability and air quality. In her current role, Ilaria leads the efforts of the RSC I&D team to increase the diversity of people choosing and fulfilling their potential in the chemical sciences. Areas of focus of the team include disability and accessibility, gender parity, socioeconomic inclusion, race and ethnicity and LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Connie was born in Germany, grew up in Austria and received her chemistry training in the UK and the US. She discovered her interest in chemistry when she took part in the Chemistry Olympiad competition during her time in high school. While completing her MChem at the University of Oxford, she worked on the synthesis of Inthomycin A under the supervision of Timothy Donohoe. For her PhD, Connie joined the group of Tobias Ritter at Harvard, where she studied concerted nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions. During her time in the Ritter lab, she also trained as a radiochemist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she worked on developing syntheses methodologies for 18F-labeled PET tracers.

Connie then joined the lab of Mircea Dincă at MIT where she developed MOF- and alloy nanoparticle-based catalysts for alcohol upgrading. In 2020, she started her independent career as a Lise-Meitner group leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung. Her group works on the precision synthesis of heterogeneous catalysts, with a focus on metal-organic frameworks and supported transition metal phosphide catalysts.

Cristina Nevado graduated in Chemistry at the Autónoma University in 2000. In October 2004 she received her PhD from the same university working with Prof. Antonio M. Echavarren thereafter joining the group of Prof. Alois Fürstner at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Germany) as a post doctoral associate. In May 2007 she started her independent career as an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Zürich. In 2012 she received an ERC Junior Investigator grant and in 2013 was awarded the Werner Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society and was directly promoted to Full Professor. In 2019, she received the Royal Society of Chemistry Award in Organometallic Chemistry and in 2020 the Excellence Research Trajectory Award of the Royal Spanish Chemical Society (RSEQ) as well as the Margaret Faul Women in Chemistry Award in 2021. Among her many contributing roles to the community, Cristina has served as Senior Associate Editor for ACS Central Science, Organic Syntheses and now Science of Synthesis. Rooted in the wide area of organic chemistry, her research program is at the interface of complex chemical synthesis, new organometallic reactions and medicinal chemistry.

• Since 2022 acquired coaching qualifications: PCC certified coach, NLP & Hypnosis master
• Current role since 2017: Director of Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Design at Merck Healthcare KGaA in Darmstadt, Germany
• In 2010 joined Merck KGaA in Darmstadt, Germany as laboratory head in Medicinal Chemistry
• Postdoctoral stay with Steven Ley in Cambridge, UK
• PhD in total synthesis of natural products at ETH, Zürich in Prof. Altmann’s group
• Chemistry studies at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
• Vocational training as bench chemist at Hoechst AG, Germany

Rebecca T. Ruck is Associate Vice President, MSD Process Research & Development, where she leads the Enabling Technologies group, an innovation incubator of biologists, chemists, engineers and data scientists. Becky is a leader in women in chemistry efforts externally through the WCC-Merck Research Award and Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry (EWOC) conference and internally through expanded Diversity, Equity & Inclusion accomplishments, such as a series of D&I-themed TED-style talks that have greatly impacted the department’s understanding and appreciation of these important topics. She has been recognized with the 2018 ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences and as a 2020 HBA Rising Star and ACS Fellow. She currently holds positions on the ACS Petroleum Research Fund and the MIT Chemistry Visiting Committee and is an Associate Editor at ACS Catalysis. Becky graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, obtained her PhD in chemistry from Harvard University in the lab of Prof. Eric Jacobsen and conducted NIH-funded post-doctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley with Prof. Robert Bergman.

Alessia earned her MSc in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry from “La Sapienza” University of Rome in 2018. She then moved to the UK to pursue a PhD at the University of Greenwich under the supervision of Prof. Kevin Lam, focusing on electrosynthesis in batch and continuous flow as a mild method for activating small organic molecules. In 2022, she was awarded a von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship and joined Prof. Frank Glorius’s group at the University of Münster (Germany), where she gained expertise in photocatalysis and surface functionalization with N-heterocyclic carbenes. In 2024, she transitioned to industry, joining Merck KGaA as a research scientist in drug substance development. Her main interests are centered on advancing societal health through innovative synthetic techniques able to reduce environmental impact.