Miquel Costas was born in Vigo in 1971. He graduated in Chemistry at the University of Girona in 1994, where he also pursued PhD studies. Research work during the PhD involved scientific stays at Texas A&M under the supervision of late Prof Derek Barton (1996), and in Basel at the group of Prof. Andreas Zuberbüehler (1998). After defending the PhD dissertation, he moved to the group of Prof. Lawrence Que, Jr, at the University of Minnesota with a Fundació La Caixa Fellowship. In September 2002 he returned to Girona with a Ramon I Cajal Fellowship, and become professor in April 2003. In 2005 he made a scientific stay at Caneggie Mellon University under the supervision of Prof. Eckard Munck. Since 2006, he is group leader of the QBIS research group in the UdG. His research interests are broad and involve the fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of O2 activation and/or substrate oxidation taking place at transition metal ions that have biological relevance, specially Fe, Cu and Mn. Research in his group is also devoted to the development of bioinspired oxidation catalysts to carry out selective hydrocarbon oxidation reactions under environmentally benign conditions, and the aplication of these reactions to technologically relevant problems such as chemical synthesis, environmental chemistry, metallodrug development and energy related problems. In 2013, 2018 and 2024 he was awarded with the ICREA Acadèmia de la Generalitat de Catalunya. He was granted (2008) an ERC-Starting Grant of the European Research Council to develop bioinspired catalist for C-H and C=C oxidation, and an Advanced Grant in 2019 to develop catalysts for enantioselective C-H oxidation. He received the award to excellent of the Real Sociedad Española de Química (2014), with the Rafael Uson Medal from the group of Organometallic Chemistry of RSEQ (2024), with the Ciamician-Gonzales award of the spanish and italian chemical society (2024) and teh award to excellence in reserach of the societat catalana de química (2025). He is been visiting professor in the Universit of Utrecht and in the university of Paris-Descartes. He also lead research projects from the Ministerio de Ciencia y tecnologia, included a project from the Consolider Ingenio framework.
Outline of scientififc production;
240publications in international journals, >1900 citations, h index = 73
Director of 21 PhD thesis defended
> 200 invited conferences to Spanish and International Universities, and international conferences