Karen de la Vega-Hernández

Karen de la Vega-Hernández began her independent career as a CNRS researcher at the University of Toulouse, France, in 2026. She earned her PhD at Sorbonne University and pursued her postdoctoral research at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ, Spain) through an MSCA COFUND Impulsion Fellowship (2022–2024), followed by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024–2026). During this period, she also undertook a research stay at the University of Cambridge. Her work spans radical chemistry, supramolecular catalysis, and photochemistry, with a focus on rethinking how molecules are built to advance drug design and synthesis. In 2025, she was named a CAS Future Leader and selected as a Falling Walls Lab MSCA Winner. Representing the MSCA at the Global Finale in Berlin, she received the Science Breakthrough of the Year award, winning first place in the Emerging Talents category.