Our Leadership

Javier García-Martínez is a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Director of the Molecular Nanotechnology Laboratory of the University of Alicante (UA,) where he leads an international team working on the synthesis and application of nanostructured materials for the production of chemicals and energy.

Javier is the current President for 2022-2023 of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, IUPAC. Previously, he served as member of the Executive Committee and as Vice-President of the Division of Inorganic Chemistry.

Professor García-Martínez is the founder of the technology-based company Rive Technology, which markets the technology he developed during his Fulbright postdoctoral stay at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Since 2012, the catalysts that Rive Technology sells are used in several refineries, significantly increasing fuel production and the energy efficiency of the process. In 2019, W. R. GRACE acquired Rive Technology. In June 2014, Javier was awarded the King Jaime I Award in his category of New Technologies and in 2015 received the Emerging Researcher Award from the American Chemical Society. In the summer of 2017, he was recognized by the American Chemical Society with the Kathryn C. Hach Award as the best US entrepreneur in the chemical sector. Javier is a member of the Council of Emerging Technologies and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, of the Global Young Academy, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Since 2019, Javier has served as the Rafael del Pino Distinguished Professor in Alicante, Spain.

Professor Keinan was elected Vice President during the 51st Virtual Council meeting held 5-15 August 2021. As Vice President, Prof. Keinan is the Chair of the Evaluation Committee and Ex Officio member of the Project Committee. Prior to his election, he was an elected member of Bureau 2020-2021.

Prof. Keinan is Benno Gitter & Ilana Ben-Ami Professor of Chemistry at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. He was born and educated in Israel, Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science with Prof. Y. Mazur and postdoc at the University of Wisconsin with Prof. B.M. Trost. His interest fields include biocatalysis with antibodies and synthetic enzymes, organic synthesis, molecular-computing, supra-molecular chemistry, improvised explosives, and drug discovery. He has published nearly 200 research papers, 22 patents, and four books. He was Dean of the Technion Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, was an Adjunct Professor at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California (1991-2014), was the founder and first Head of the Institute of Catalysis Science and Technology in the Technion and founded two startup companies. He served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Sciences, GTIIT, Guangdong, China (2015-2016), and since 2020 he holds a Distinguished Visiting Chair at the Academia Sinica. Keinan initiated and led several national projects in Israel, including the Archimedes and Negev-Nobel projects, promoting gifted high-school pupils, and the Chemistry Olympiad.
Keinan is a public writer and activist on science education, higher education, public policy on energy and chemical industry.

Professor Richard Hartshorn holds a BSc degree with first class honours from the University of Canterbury and a PhD from The Australian National University. Prior to his re-election as Secretary General at the 50th General Assembly meeting in Paris, France 2019, he has served as an Elected Member of Bureau (2014-2015), the Chair of the Evaluation Committee (2014-2015), Past President, Division of Chemical Nomenclature and Structure Representation (2014-2015), President, Division of Chemical Nomenclature and Structure Representation (2010-2013), Vice President, Division of Chemical Nomenclature and Structure Representation (2007-2009), Committee on Chemistry Education (2006-2015), and the New Zealand Representative to IUPAC Council 2009, 2011, 2013. He was recently elected to the Executive Committee of CODATA (https://www.codata.org/)

Professor Hartshorn is currently a Professor of Chemistry in the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry. He was elected Secretary General for 2016-2019 by Council at the 48th General Assembly in Busan, Korea 13 August 2015. He was re-elected for a second term for 2020-2023 by Council at the 50th General Assembly in Paris, France 11 July 2019.
His research group works in the area of applying the coordination chemistry of dinuclear and heterodinuclear systems to problems in biological chemistry, and he has a long-standing interest in nomenclature and new ways of systematically naming and representing chemical compounds. He has been heavily involved in school and community education, through establishment of a science outreach program at UC, and is the Chair of Trust Board for the National Science-Technology Roadshow (https://www.roadshow.org/index.php), and for many years was a Board member of Science Alive! (https://www.sciencealive.co.nz/).
Professor Hartshorn devotes much of his spare time to coaching cricket, and often has a sore arm and shoulder from throwing cricket balls at his sons. He was a New Zealand U19 cricket representative and is a qualified cricket coach.

Professor Wolfram Koch is currently IUPAC Treasurer, having been elected at the 51st Virtual Council for a four year term. Prior to his election as Treasurer for 2022-2025, he served on the IUPAC Finance Committee (FC) from 2008 to 2015. He was a Titular Member of the Committee on Publications and Cheminformatics Data Standards (CPCDS) from 2014 to 2021. He also served as a Titular Member on the Interdivisional Committee on Green Chemistry for Sustainable Development (ICGCSD) 2018-2019. As Treasurer, he is an Ex Officio member of the newly created Centenary Endowment Board and Finance Committee.
Wolfram studied chemistry at the Technical Universities in Darmstadt and Berlin. He obtained his PhD in computational organic chemistry at TU Berlin in 1986. From 1987 until 1991 he worked for IBM, first as a Postdoc at the Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA (USA), then as a Senior Scientist at IBM Germany’s Scientific Center in Heidelberg (Germany). In 1992 Koch was appointed Professor of Theoretical Organic Chemistry at TU Berlin. In November 1998 he joined the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh, German Chemical Society) in Frankfurt. Since November 2002 he is GDCh's Executive Director. In addition, he was Executive Director and General Secretary of the German NAO to IUPAC from 2002 until the end of 2020.

Professor Christopher Brett holds MA and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford, UK.
Prior to his election as Vice President (President-Elect) at the 49th Council Meeting in São Paulo, Brazil (2017) he was an Elected Member of the Bureau and Member of the Executive Committee of the Bureau (2012-2015; 2016-2017). As Vice President, he chaired the Evaluation Committee (2016-2019), was a member of the Membership Relations Committee (2012-2017) and member of the IUPAC Centenary Planning Steering Group. He was President of the Division of Physical and Biophysical Chemistry (2006-2007), a member of the Committee on Chemistry Education, and was member of the Electrochemistry Commission from 1994, chair in 2000-2001. He is a member of the Interdivisional Committee on Green Chemistry for Sustainable Development, having been on the Green Chemistry Sub-committee since its foundation in 2002.

He is currently Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Coimbra, Portugal and Director of the Laboratory for Electroanalysis and Corrosion, Instituto Pedro Nunes, the interface between the University of Coimbra and the business and industrial sector. He was President of the Analytical Chemistry Division of the Portuguese Chemical Society in 1996-1999 and 2003-2005, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and Chartered Chemist. He was President of the International Society of Electrochemistry, an IUPAC Associated Organization, from 2007-2008.

His research interests lie in the broad area of materials and electrochemistry, sensing and bio-sensing on which he has published nearly 300 scientific papers. He is the co-author of a widely-known and successful textbook on electrochemistry for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Prof. Brett spends much of his ever-shrinking spare time to music, as a complement to his scientific activity.