Professor appointed to BayBatt

After Prof. Dr. Nella M. Vargas-Barbosa studied chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras, she went to Pennsylvania State University to do her PhD in chemistry there as well. She has been in Germany since 2015, first working at Philipps University in Marburg, then as a junior group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, and has now come to the University of Bayreuth from the Helmholtz Institute Münster (Jülich Research Centre). She took over the Chair of Electrochemistry on 1 August.

"We are particularly interested in using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy as a method for rapid screening of transport and performance properties such as ionic conductivity and electrocatalytic activity," says Prof. Vargas-Barbosa. She is also working at the Bavarian Centre for Battery Technology (BayBatt) at the University of Bayreuth specifically on the development of solid-state batteries and light-driven charge transfer and transport processes for energy storage.

"The fact that there is such interdisciplinary collaboration at BayBatt brings many opportunities for my research. I am convinced that by gaining a comprehensive understanding of the processes that take place at electrochemical interfaces, we can also make a major contribution to energy storage," she says.

Professor Vargas-Babosa is teaching the Electrochemistry I seminar in the Battery Materials and Technology Master's programme this winter semester. "I am very pleased that I will now be in direct contact with students."