Maria de Fátima Costa Guedes da Silva is Associate Professor (with Habilitation) at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Universidade de Lisboa (ULisboa), President of the Portuguese Electrochemical Society and Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC). (Co)-Coordinator of the Coordination Chemistry and Catalysis research Group at Centro de Química Estrutural (CQE).

Co-founder of the College of Chemistry of the ULisboa, Member of its Executive Commission and Coordinator of the Communication and Image Division (2015-17).

Co-founder of the Catalysis and Sustainability (CATSUS) multi-university PhD Program and member of its Directive Body (since 2014). Member of the Administrative Council of the Portuguese Electrochemical Society and Editor of its international research journal Portugaliae Electrochimica Acta (1996-2002). Member of the Coordination Commission of CQE (2015-19) and of the Scientific Council of this Centre (since 2015). Co-Chairperson of major international conferences (XXII International Conference on Homogeneous Catalysis to be held in 2022; 1st International Conference on Non-Covalent Interactions, 2019; 7th EuCheMS Nitrogen-ligands Conference, 2018; XXV International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry, XXV ICOMC, 2012).

Her research activity follows a general streamline that usually starts with the design and synthesis of novel coordination compounds, then evolving to their eventual application by exploring structure-properties (including reactivity) - function (application) relationships. 

Her main research interests include: structural determination, by X-ray diffraction analysis, of metal complexes and organic compounds, metal polynuclear assemblies and supramolecular structures; non-covalent interactions; activation, by transition metal centres, of small molecules with biological, pharmacological, environmental or industrial significance; metal mediated synthesis and catalysis; molecular electrochemistry and electrocatalysis; mechanistic investigation of fast reactions mainly by digital simulation of cyclic voltammetry.

Co-Edited 2 books (“Non-covalent Interactions in Catalysis”, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2019; “Alkane Functionalization”, J. Wiley & Sons, 2019), co-authored 17 book chapters and over 380 research publications and 13 patents. 

Her work received ca. 9,000 citations without self-citations, more than 1,000 overall citations per year since 2018,  h-index = 57 (Web of Science 24/05/2022, based on 362 publications)

Was awarded the Scientific Prize Universidade de Lisboa / Caixa Geral de Depósitos (2017), as the scientifically most productive member of this University in Chemical and Chemical Engineering Sciences in the last quinquennial; the Scientific Prize of the Portuguese Electrochemical Society (SPE2013) by this Society within the celebrations of its 30 years anniversary, recognizing the scientific achievements in the Electrochemistry science and the role played for the development of the Society.

https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/homepage/ist90142