Mission and CV

                                                            For a better water treatment and protection

- Mechanistic study of Advanced Oxidation Processes AOP (i.e. electrochemical, TiO2 photo-assisted, ultrasound, photo-Fenton) 
-Development of synergistic coupling between different AOP for the degradation of chemical and microbiological pollutants in water and air. 
- Coupling of AOP and biological systems for industrial waste-waters treatment 
- Design, preparation, chemical characterization, activity evaluation and mechanistic description of (nano) materials with (photo)catalytic activity pour environmental applications 
- Development of supported self-cleaning and self-disinfecting (photo) actives materials 
- Cooperation projects with colleagues from Latin America and Africa. (Agro) industrial waste-waters treatment and household water disinfection by simple and non-expensive helio- photocatalytic processes. Supervision of PH D and trainees from these countries 

CV C. Pulgarin (updated the 11.03.2023)

Education

Chemist from Lausanne University, Master in environmental chemistry from Geneva University, PhD in bio-inspired synthesis of natural substances from Neuchâtel University, Two Post PhDs: 1- electrochemistry and 2-biological engineering from EPFL.

Main professional activities

- 1989-2019,   taught and led a research group  at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) the word 12th engineering & technology university and 9th in chemistry    https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2022/chemistry
- From 2019, advisor in 1) his research fields 2) organization and management of research teams and universities 3) scientific projects mounting 4) good practices to publish in science and engineering

Research fields

a)      Elucidation of mechanistic action mode of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) towards chemical and biological targets in water and surfaces.
b)      Design, preparation, characterization of self-disinfecting Nano-surfaces

Main milestones

- Participated in twenty international projects in 4 continents including 8 from European Union
- Supervision of 25 PhD & post PhD and 180 Master plus invited Ph D students training
- Has 283 Q1 level publications in Scopus and 21 book chapters
- The average IF of journals in which his papers were published between 2018 and 2022 is 15 
- Has an H index of 72 and 17’900 citations in Scopus and 81 and 23’800 citations in Scholar Google https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=fr&user=pwynQrEAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
- Has several seminal papers and is the 1st to 4th world most cited author in his research fields
- Has been invited for a hundred of plenary and key conferences in congress and other frameworks
- Is member of the scientific committee of the most important conferences of AOPs
- Is teacher of two European doctoral school in his field
- Contributed to the development of two patents and two startups
- Led during 25 years a cooperation between EPFL and several Colombian universities
- Did 102 papers with Colombian pairs including the 1st - 2th Colombian publications in his field
- Is international expert for the evaluation of Ph. D. thesis, projects and research teams
- Taught during 10 years and supervised two Ph D and 8 Master students in 2IE Burkina Faso
- Represented Switzerland in the European Association of Photocatalysis
- Was co-funder of  “Asociacion Colombiana de Investigadores en Suiza” (ACIS)

Main awards

 - Applied Catalysis B (IF: 24.3 ), the first of 228 journals in his field, devoted in 2020 a special issue on his honour as he has been the 4th most published author in in this 1rst ranked journal of his domain https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0926337319310203?token=99FF5AE923B67162B5654A6F1BB9F369B0E09089AD8CA9271C988B888BE80E5BBB5355BC2C6D09E427E1BE168275D3CF

- Emeritus Professor from EPFL; Honorary Member of the Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; Most important Colombian National Awards in Sciences in 2022; Awards for his Distinguished Career from Ibero- American Congress of Advanced Oxidation Processes; Gran Cruz del Valle from Valle University; Dr Honoris Causa from Caldas University; Gold Book from Valencia University, Honorary Member of the Colombian Congress of AOPs.