The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of
everyday thinking (Albert Einstein)

Born in Madrid (Spain, 1974). Her M. Sc. was done at the Department of Organic Chemistry (University Autónoma of Madrid, Spain) under supervision of Prof José Luis García Ruano. The title of her thesis was “Stereoselective addition of lithium ester enolates to a-methyl-b-ketosulfoxide: Application to the synthesis of (R)-(-)-Mevalonolactone”. In February 1999, she started her PhD at the Department of Organic Chemistry II (University Ulm, Germany) under supervision of Prof Peter Bäuerle. She received her Ph.D. (magna cum laude) degree in 2003. The title of her dissertation was “Synthesis and Electrochemical Characterization of poly(3,4-ethylendioxythiophene) (PEDOT) derivatives”. After receiving her degree she spent one year as a Post-Doc at the Exotic Materials Institute (UCLA, USA) working on two different projects – “The synthesis of thermally remendable polymer materials” and “The synthesis of novel acene derivatives”- under supervision of Prof Fred Wudl. In October 2004, she moved to Sweden to work on the synthesis and characterization of conjugated polymers for use in optoelectronic devices at Chalmers University of Technology (Göteborg, Sweden) under supervision of Prof Mats Andersson. In February 2005, she joined again Prof Peter Bäuerle´s group working as a guest researcher and teaching the Reaction Mechanisms course for undergraduates students.

In November 2005, she started as a Post-Doc Research Associate at Organic Innovation Centre (Manchester University, UK) working on the development of new organic materials for electronic. She is working as part of a multi-disciplinary team of scientist from the Universities of Sheffield, Nottingham and Glasgow in the
“Snomipede” project. Once developed, this pioneering new technology could enable advances in areas as diverse as the understanding of the origins of disease and the low-cost commercial manufacture of plastic computer chips. The Snomipede will enable scientist to create tiny molecular structures on scales as small as 13 nanometres.

Publications:

• D. Caras-Quintero and P. Bäuerle “Efficient synthesis of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophenes (EDOT) by Mitsunobu reaction” Chem. Commun. 2002, 2690-2691.
• D. Caras-Quintero and P. Bäuerle “Synthesis and electro-chemical characterization of the first chiral disubstituted 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) derivatives” Chem. Commun. 2004, 926-927 .

Courses Attended:

• October 2001: Combinatorial Chemistry Course (University Ulm, Germany).
• September 2001: Information seminar for PhD students: International Course (Bayer AG, Germany).
• September 1998: “The role of the organic synthesis in the pharmaceutical industry”, Summer Courses (University Autónoma of Madrid), Spain.

Other Interests:

She likes travelling, reading, cooking and meeting people from
different cultures. She looks forward to her weekly yoga class
with great anticipation and she knows that yoga is something she
will enjoy doing for the rest of her life. She still has a number
of other ambitions to fulfill in the near future.