Luísa Margarida Martins is Full Professor at the Chemical Engineering Department (DEQ) of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.
She is the coordinator of the PhD in Chemistry (since 2023) and co-founder of the Catalysis and Sustainability PhD program.
Luísa develops her research activities at Centro de Química Estrutural (CQE), Institute of Molecular Sciences (IMS), of IST, coordinates the MARCLab - Molecular Architectures, Reactivity and Catalysis research group, and was (2018-23) coordinator of CQE thematic line Synthesis, Catalysis and Reactivity (SYNCat) and member of CQE Coordination Commission of the Scientific Council.
Luísa's research focuses on the application of green chemistry principles to provide improved (cost-effective, energy-efficient, sustainable, and scalable) catalytic processes for the synthesis of large-scale commodities (e.g., acetic and adipic acids), the fixation of carbon dioxide (e.g., into methanol, formic acid or (poly)carbonates), and biomass valorisation (e.g., into biopolymers or sugar-acids).
Luísa is team leader in designing sustainable homogeneous and/or single-site heterogenous catalysts and combine them with unconventional synthetic strategies and computational studies. Her preferred catalysts are the C-scorpionate complexes. She is also very keen of molecular electrochemistry and electrocatalysis.
She is a highly cited researcher, recognized by Stanford University (since 2019), maintaining her position in the top 2% in her field.
Research outcomes
- over 225 peer-reviewed papers: h index = 51
- 14 patents (WO, EP and PT)
- 1 book (Ed.)
- 22 invited book chapters
- over 430 conference presentations (over 70 invited oral communications)
Luísa is FRSC (since 2016), 
Senior member of OE - Ordem dos Engenheiros,
Vice-president of Sociedade Portuguesa de Química (since 2023),
Delegate of the Division of Green and Sustainable Chemistry of EuChemS (since 2021),
member of ACS - American Chemical Society (since 2018),
member of ISE - International Society of Electrochemistry (since 2017),
and former President of the Portuguese Electrochemical Society (2014-2018).