Clara Gomes is an Assistant Researcher at Laboratório Associado para a Química Verde (LAQV), NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA), in the Molecular Synthesis group. Since November 2018, she is also the Service Responsible and Service Scientist in the Single Crystal X-Ray Crystallography Service, with duties of implementing and managing the Structure Determination Service and the X-Ray Facility (Department of Chemistry, FCT NOVA). She graduated in Chemistry from the University of Coimbra and finished a MSc in Organic Chemistry in 2003 at the same University, working on the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds. In 2009, she completed a PhD in Chemistry, with specialization in Organometallic Chemistry, at Instituto Superior Técnico (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa), under the supervision of Dr. Pedro T. Gomes. From 2010 to 2018, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Centro de Química Estrutural (IST), where she continued to work on the development of new organometallic/coordination catalytic systems for polymerization of olefins and in the application of boron molecules as luminescent materials, on mechanochemistry and crystallography (SCXRD). All these subjects contributed to deepen her skills.

Her research spans the areas of synthetic coordination/organometallic chemistry, whenever possible employing green chemistry synthetic methodologies, such as mechanochemistry, catalysis, and supramolecular chemistry, in the synthesis of flexible metal-organic frameworks and cages for structure elucidation of important non-crystalline target guests, such as oils, liquids or amorphous solids.

Citation metrics in Scopus (ID 24343503400) indicate 71 articles with citation data, 1 of them as corresponding author (>760 citations and h-index 16, May 2022), 2 book chapters, 1 encyclopedia entry and 2 datasets (as corresponding author), 2 patents, 25 oral communications (11 invited and 8 co-authored) and co-authored 53 poster communications. 

She has been successful in obtaining financial funding. In 2018, she was awarded a 238k project (PTDC/QUI-QIN/31585/2017), as Principal Investigator. Currently, she is co-PI due to the change in her professional affiliation from IST-ULisboa to LAQV, FCT NOVA, but still assuming coordination duties. She is/was a team member in 13 other projects, including the recently approved Horizon Europe project IMPACTIVE (nr. 101057286) to be started in October 2022. She is a Core Group (Gender Balance Coordinator and Grant Awarding Coordinator), Communications Team and a WG1 member of COST Action CA18112.

Since 2008, she has been involved in teaching activities keeping regular support to 1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles in Chemistry and X-ray diffraction curricular units. She also teaches regularly at advanced courses and workshops. In the last 5 years, she supervised 14 students (2 MSc, 1 MSc research fellow, 3 internships, 7 BSc projects and 1 ongoing), and tutored 4 PhD students in XRD. In the last 5 years, she was in the jury in 18 academic examinations (including PhD), being the main examiner in 9. She is an Independent Expert for the European Commission (Expert ID: EX2021D410077, Chemical Sciences) and participates in international panels for evaluation of projects and individual grants.

As a recognition of her internationalisation, she has been invited to give 11 Invited/Key Lectures and seminars in international/national meetings and workshops and as discussion leader, is member of the editorial board of 2 journals, is reviewer for 14 journals, was member of the organizing committee of 9 conferences and workshops, 2 to be held in 2022, and maintains a national and international collaborative network with researchers from Lisbon, Coimbra, Serbia, UK, France, Poland, and Spain.