Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

Marie Curie support allowed me, among other things, toattend conferences, workshops and scientific meetings,and this was truly essential. I really appreciated that.’Today, Dr H. Juárez works at IMDEA Nanoscience, a foundationcreated by the regional Government of the Community ofMadrid and Spain’s Ministry of Education and Science,to manage the Madrid Institute of Advanced Research inNanoscience. ‘Our institute promotes the creation of newresearch groups by bringing together scientists from differentareas and from relevant international research establishments,’explains Dr H. Juárez.IMDEA Nanoscience fosters effective collaboration on ambitiousinterdisciplinary research programmes, she explains, whichis work that surpasses the capacity of individual groups.Training of new scientifi c and technical personnel is anotherkey priority, and there has been a major push to create spinoffcompanies.Just the beginningDr H. Juárez has proved that gender need no longer be a barrierto success in the hard sciences. In 2009, she was awardedthe AGeNT-D Nanoscience Prize, honouring her for researchdone with Professor Weller in Hamburg. Clearly, her presenceas a Marie Curie Fellow added a new dimension to his group,and she has shown herself to be a positive role model forother women looking to make a career in the development ofleading-edge technologies.The results of Dr H. Juárez’ research have been crucial to hercurrent work. ‘Working with Professor Weller at the Instituteof Physical Chemistry, I gained a high level of understandingin the synthesis and characterisation of these fascinating“quantum dot” nanomaterials,’ she says of her Marie CurieFellowship. ‘At the end of the project we had completed thefabrication of novel hybrid materials combining semiconductornanoparticles and carbon nanotubes with potential applicationsin photovoltaics and solar cells.’170