We are very happy to announce that the 2020 winner is

Josep Cornella, Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Germany

Josep Cornella (Pep) was born in La Bisbal del Penedes, a small town in south Catalunya (Spain) and studied chemistry at the University of Barcelona. In 2008, he moved to the UK to pursue doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Igor Larrosa (UK). After completing his Ph. D. in 2012, he obtained a Marie Curie Fellowship to pursue postdoctoral studies first in the group of Prof. Ruben Martin at the ICIQ (Spain) and subsequently in the group of Prof. Phil S. Baran in The Scripps Research Institute (USA). In spring 2017, he was selected as a Max Planck Research Group Leader to start his independent career in the Department of Organometallic Chemistry at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Germany), where he founded and currently leads the Sustainable Catalysis Laboratory. During these initial years, the group of Dr. Cornella has pioneered the development of methodologies based on bismuth, by unlocking its ability to revolve between different oxidation states during catalysis. In addition to fundamental studies on bismuth redox catalysis, Dr. Cornella group has provided a solution to years of sensitive Ni catalysis by providing a family of Ni(0) complexes that can be handled open to air. During his independent career, the group of Dr. Cornella has published 15 original research papers, which span from development of new reactivity to the development of reagents for practical and simple organic synthesis. Recent accomplishments include an ERC Starting Grant 2020, Dozentenpreis des Fonds from the Verband der Chemischen Industrie, Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis 2021 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft-BMBF, ORCHEM Young Talent Award 2020, Bayer Early Career Excellence in Science Award 2020 and C&EN Talented 12-2020.

The winner receives a certificate and an invitation by business-class flights to present an award lecture after the award ceremony at Kyoto University. In addition, the winner gives several additional lectures in other universities (Osaka University, Nagoya University, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, etc.) as the KYOTO Rising-Star Lectureship for one week or so.

On behalf of the award committee we warmly congratulate Professor Cornella on this achievement and wish him every success with his future research.