Bio

Miguel A. Peña received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1990 from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. He is researcher at the CSIC since 1993, and has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Notre Dame (USA), at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (China), and at the Istituto di Tecnologie Avanzate per l’Energia (Italy). He is Secretary of the Spanish Hydrogen Association, member of the AENOR Technical Standardization Committee of hydrogen technologies, member of the different advisory committees of government agencies, and organizer of several international congresses. His research interests are focused mainly in catalytic processes for clean energy production, specifically in catalytic applications of perovskite oxides (PhD dissertation), natural gas conversion, catalytic combustion, catalytic membrane reactors, hydrogen production, and fuel cell catalysts. He has published more than 100 research papers, has collaborated in the edition of 7 books, and is co-inventor of 6 patents.

Project

Scientific research at public institutions has, in many cases, two important social gaps: one is with industry, and is related with research topics that pretend to be applied, but that usually are far away from the industry needs; the other is with the society itself, with scientists trapped in an ivory tower, writing papers that only other scientists read, and finally nobody knows what is all this science stuff for. This last gap can be reduced if scientists keep in contact with professors and students of primary and secondary schools. Renewable energies and robotics are two perfect areas for this kind of relationships.