Noelia Barrabés studied Chemical Engineering at the Rovira i Virgili
University (Tarragona, Spain), where she also did her PhD focused on
heterogeneous catalysis, developing nanostructured catalysts for
environmental catalytic processes. During this time, she did several
stages at Queens University in Belfast, at TU Wien and at Biomagune.
Her thesis was awarded by her home university and by the Spanish
Catalysis Society.
In 2009, Noelia Barrabés moved to Montpellier for a postdoc at the
CNRS/ENSCM center, working on layered materials for catalysis.
Shortly afterwards, she got an IEF Marie Curie grant (2010) for
combining catalysis with in-situ spectroscopic studies, hosted at TU
Wien and including some research stays at ICIQ. In 2012, she moved
to Geneva and got the SNSF Marie Heim Vögtlich fellowship. At this
point, she started developing her main research topic, the synergy of
metal nanoclusters, surface science and catalysis. Since she finished
her PhD, Noelia Barrabés has been able to fund her research career
and work independently, while also managing two maternity leaves.
Noelia Barrabés moved back to Vienna in 2015 to obtain her
habilitation and started the group ClusCat, focused on atomically
designed heterogeneous catalysis by metal nanoclusters. Her work
on disclosing nanocluster catalyst dynamics on surfaces by
operando spectroscopy (XAFS and IR) led to several feature journal
articles. In 2019, she got the Wissenschaftspreis of the Austrian
Chemical Society (GÖCH) and in 2020, she was awarded an Elise
Richter excellence grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).