Alma Krpuljevic-Hanic was born in Podgorica, Montenegro, where she completed her primary education and gymnasium. She continued her studies at the Faculty of Law in Sarajevo, while simultaneously beginning a career in international and non-governmental organizations, focusing on human rights and the fight against corruption. Her journey then took an unexpected turn when she moved to Vienna with her family. There, she completed her education as a legal assistant and also specialized in business administration. After gaining brief experience in the legal sector and at a law firm, Alma joined the Bonifazi Group in 2022 as an administrative assistant.

Laura Maggini was born in La Spezia (Italy) in 1984. She obtained her Master Degree in Organic Chemistry at the University of Rome – Sapienza (Italy) in 2006 investigating the reactivity of sulfoxide radical cations. She then moved to the University of Namur (Belgium) as a Marie Sklodowska Curie ITN ESR PhD candidate (Finelumen project N°215399), to pioneer the exploitation of the supramolecular functionalisation of CNTs with purposefully designed molecular modules to gain new functions, direct the assembly and enhance the activity of the resulting hybrid systems. During her PhD she was also a visiting scientist in the group of Prof. Aida at the Riken Institute in Tokyo (Japan), where she investigated the directed embedding of the functional hybrids developed into hydrogel matrices. Funded by two consecutive Marie Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowships she first joined the group of Prof. De Cola at the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (I.S.I.S.), University of Strasbourg (France), to develop the synthesis of “breakable” functional mesoporous silica NPs for drug delivery formulations (Pop-silica project N° 627788). And later the group of Dr. De Volder at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge (UK), to study the controlled assembly of hybrid nanomaterials exploiting additive manufacturing technologies in the pursuit of multi-scale engineered advanced materials (Supra-CNTs project N° 702435).

Since 2020 she joined the Institute for Organic Chemistry at the University of Vienna (Austria) as Senior Researcher associated to Prof. Bonifazi’s group, leading the research effort aimed at developing novel manufacturing platforms and scale up production processes for the functional organic supramolecular materials produced in the laboratory.

Igor was born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain in 1994. He studied chemistry and a master in advanced chemistry in the University of Burgos (UBU). Subsequently he completed a PhD in synthesis and characterization of organometallic complexes with Ir, Ru and Rh for their use in photocatalysis and photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the University of Burgos under the supervision of the Prof. Gustavo Espino and the prof. Roberto Quesada (2022). After that he moved to Vienna for a postdoc in the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) for working in the preparation and characterization of Prussian Blue Analogues (PBAs) for their use in energy storage.

In November of 2024 he joined the group of Prof. Davide Bonifazi to work as a Technical Assistant.

Francisco Garnes Portolés studied Chemistry and a Master in Organic Chemistry at the University of Valencia (UV), doing his final work in Asymmetric Organocatalysis, under the supervision of Prof. Santos Fustero (2018). Subsequently, he completed a PhD (2023) in Sustainable Chemistry at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (ITQ, UPV-CSIC) on heterogeneous catalysis, under the supervision of Dr. Antonio Leyva-Pérez. He continued working in the same research group for an additional year, focusing on organic reactions with industrial applications.
In September 2024 he moved to Vienna, where he is conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Vienna on Photocatalysis and Electrophotocatalysis, under the supervision of Prof. Davide Bonifazi.

Daniel Chrenko was born in the Czech Republic in 1996. He obtained his BSc in Chemistry (2018) and MSc in Organic Chemistry (2020) at Palacký University Olomouc, working on transition-metal complexes and diversity-oriented synthesis of nitrogen containing heterocycles.

He completed his PhD in 2024 at the same institution under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Jiří Pospíšil, focusing on and asymmetric catalysis and total synthesis of natural and unnatural products. During his doctoral studies, he carried out two research stays at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Prof. Mario Waser) and the University of Zurich (Prof. Cristina Nevado) where he gained further knowledge in phase-transfer catalysis and photocatalysis.

After a postdoctoral stay with Prof. Thomas Böttcher at the University of Vienna, he joined the group of Prof. Davide Bonifazi in September 2025, where he is currently working on photocatalysis and electrophotocatalysis.

Ruben was born in Portugal, in 1993.

Rúben has a degree in Applied Chemistry and an MSc in Bioorganic Chemistry from the NOVA University of Lisbon. During his studies, Rúben worked in several projects with the Photochemistry and Supramolecular Chemistry Group.

After completing his master, Ruben joining the company Ynvisible, in Lisbon, as a Researcher working on the development and characterization of electrochromic displays. During his work at the company, Rúben worked in several European projects and collaborated with several companies, research institutes and universities. Later on, he moved to Germany were we helped to setup the company new R&D lab.

In April of 2020, Rúben joined the Bonifazi group as a PhD student, his work will be focused in the development of multi-functional electrochromic materials and devices.

Liubov Rubicheva was born in Arkhangelsk, Russia, in 1997.

She obtained bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Saint Petersburg State University in 2019, followed by master’s degree there in 2021. Her thesis were devoted to the synthesis of variously substituted porphyrin-fullerene dyads.

After that, she joined the Electrochemical Department of Saint Petersburg University, where she worked on the synthesis of TEMPO-substituted monomers for electroactive polymers.

In August 2022 she joined Prof. Bonifazi group to work on the synthesis of boron-nitrogen doped graphenic structures.

Nils was born in Linz, Austria in 1998.

After graduating from a technical high school for chemical engineering (HTL Wels) in 2017, he moved to Vienna to study chemistry. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Vienna in September 2020 and subsequently started his master studies, focusing on the synthesis and characterization of organic molecules and coordination compounds. During his studies, Nils completed several internships in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry (e.g. at Thermo-Fisher Scientific and GE Healthcare).

In March 2022 he joined the group of Prof. Bonifazi for his master’s thesis, where he was working on the synthesis and characterization of BN-doped helicenes. After defending his master thesis and earning his degree in February 2023, he re-joined the Bonifazi group to carry out his PhD studies. He is currently working on the development of novel BN-doped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) architectures.

From May to November 2023 Nils completed a research stay with Prof. Timothy M. Swager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), supported by a MSCA staff exchange grant through the VIT-project. His work at MIT was revolving around the synthesis of microporous polymers, bearing BN-doped PAH-chromophores.

Chiara was born in Lucca, Italy, in 1997. She completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Chemistry at the University of Pisa, where she optimized the synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles doped with aluminium and cobalt.

In November 2022, Chiara moved to Vienna joining BrightComSol GmbH, a company that develops and produces perovskite-based materials and nanomaterials to be used in X-rays scintillators.

In September 2023, she joined the Melomanes project as a PhD student in Bonifazi group. Her work will be focused on synthesis and characterization of iron carbide nanoparticles with a graphitic carbon coating for magnetic and optical hyperthermia.

El Czar Galleposo was born in Dapitan City, Philippines in 1996. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UP Diliman) in 2017. Then, he joined the Institute of Chemistry at UP Diliman as an instructor from 2017 to 2021. He received his master’s in chemistry from the same university in 2020, working on metal-organic framework synthesis for proton conduction applications. In 2021, he was awarded the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship to attend the Master in Materials Science for Energy & Use of Large-Scale Facilities (MaMaSELF+) program, spending his first year at the University of Turin and the second year at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. Then, he joined Empa, St Gallen, Switzerland, to work on his master’s thesis, which focused on probiotic-derived membrane vesicles for wound healing applications. In 2023, he started his doctoral studies in chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Davide Bonifazi, working on materials for applications in optoelectronic and light-harvesting systems.

Lorenzo was born in Florence, Italy, in 1999. He completed his Bachelor in Chemistry at the University of Florence, with a thesis on the synthesis of graphene quantum dots doped with nitrogen.

Then he decided to continue the university career still in Florence and he completed his Master in Chemical Sciences with a thesis on the preparation of liposome-gold nanoparticles hybrids for SERS imaging.

In October 2023, he joined the Melomanes project as a PhD student in the Bonifazi group. His work will be about the synthesis and characterization of iron carbide nanoparticles coated with polydopamine and boron-carbon-nitrogen for magnetic and optical hyperthermia.

Leon Karner completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Chemistry at the University of Vienna.

In 2024 he started his PhD in the Bonifazi group where he will work on the synthesis of PXX derivatives that are suitable for the introduction of a novel, light-controlled autocatalytic methodology (auto-photocatalysis) and on the synthesis of chromophores with tailored photophysical properties, to be utilized as antennas within a liquid crystal matrix for light harvesting.

Miriam Ciallella was born in Milan, Italy, in 1999. She completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry at the University of Milano-Bicocca, presenting a thesis on “Palladium-catalyzed Cross-Coupling reactions supported on carbon in aqueous media” under the supervision of Dr. Luca Beverina. She continued her Master in Photochemistry and Molecular Materials at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, presenting her thesis, “Electron-primed photoredox catalysis: a novel tool for the synthesis of molecular graphenoids,” under the supervision of Dr. Davide Bonifazi.
In 2025, she joined the Bonifazi Group as a PhD student, where she will work on developing sustainable photochemical depolymerization methodologies in collaboration with BASF.

Tim was born in Deggendorf, Germany, in 2000.

He moved to Vienna in 2019 to study chemistry at the University of Vienna, where he completed his bachelor’s thesis on the CO2 reduction utilizing copper electrodes. He continued with his master studies, which concluded in a master’s thesis on the synthesis and characterization of helical BN-doped scaffolds under the supervision of Liubov Rubicheva and Nils Pellinger.

Joining the Bonifazi group as a PhD student in June 2025, he is building upon his master’s thesis, giving an emphasis on the synthesis of BN-doped molecular graphenoids and the analysis of their properties.

Moritz Riegler enrolled at the University of Vienna in 2021 obtaining his bachelor’s degree working on “Synthesis of an O-doped Kekulene: Hexaoxokekulene” in the Bonifazi group and subsequently continued his studies concluding with his master thesis “Synthesis towards a multipoint chalcogen-bonding recognition motif”.

He re-joined the Bonifazi group as a PhD student in 2025 focussing on supramolecular chemistry, in particular the synthesis and study of organic molecules containing chalcogen atoms, such as sulphur, selenium, and tellurium.

Vincent completed his bachelor’s degree 2023 in Cologne, Germany, with the topic of his bachelor’s thesis being “Encapsulation of hydrophobic drugs into micelles and mesoporous silica nanoparticles”. Subsequently he moved to Vienna in 2023 to pursue his master’s degree. In 2025 Vincent joined the Bonifazi Group as part of his master’s thesis working on developing organic colours through rational mixing of molecular electrochromic hues.

Milorad Stokic was born in Vienna, Austria, in 2000.

After graduating from a high school for chemical engineering (HBLVA Rosensteingasse), with a focus on biochemistry, he completed his bachelor thesis working on Olefination Reactions via Dihydrodiazete Intermediates at the University of Vienna. He is currently working on the interdisciplinary topic “Towards Cubic Graphite: photocatalyzed C-C bond formation for tetraphenylenes synthesis” as his master thesis. Here he conducts his practical research in the Group of Prof. Davde Bonifazi, followed by theoretical chemistry in the Group of Prof. Leticia González Herrero.

Alexander Smutny was born in 1998 in Vienna, Austria.
He completed his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Vienna in 2023 working on the synthesis of natural products and has started his master studies at the University of Vienna. He is currently working on the synthesis of novel BNB- and NBN-doped graphenoids under supervision of Liubov Rubicheva and Nils Pellinger.