Aram Bugaev wins the ESRF Young Scientist Award 2025

Bugaev specialises in developing experimental and theoretical approaches for operando spectroscopy for catalysis. This includes designing new setups, especially for high pressures and liquid phase reactions, as well as new strategies for data analysis that involve big data and machine learning. “X-ray spectroscopy is my true passion and I do my best to make it accessible and useful for relevant, let’s say real life applications”, explains Bugaev. These include the development of new drugs, green energy and circular economy solutions for our sustainable future.

Bugaev is not a newcomer at the ESRF. Back in 2013, during his masters at the Southern Federal University at Prof. Alexander Soldatov's group and later a PhD in the University of Turin, under the guidance of Carlo Lamberti, he started using beamlines BM23 and the Swiss-Norwegian beamline BM31. “The ESRF has become a huge and integral part of my life and I cannot imagine what my research would look like without ESRF”, he acknowledges.

It is not the first time that Bugaev’s work is awarded. This year, he has received a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Starting Grant, to design "Microfluidic reactors to uncover structure-performance relationships in heterogenous and homogenous catalysis in flow". In contrast to the classical approach, where scientists create small models of a real reactors, he will develop a series unique devices that will be suitable for both synchrotron studies, as well as industrial large scale production.

Bugaev has a master’s in physics (Nanoscale Structure of Materials) from the Southern Federal University (Russia), a PhD in Chemistry and materials science from the University of Turin (Italy) and a doctoral degree (habilitation) in Physics from the Southern Federal University (Russia) on the topic “Dynamics of the atomic and electronic structure of the palladium-based catalysts under relevant industrial conditions”.

References from his latest work at the ESRF:

https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202401184

https://doi.org/10.1039/D3TC04175A

https://doi.org/10.1039/D2SC04911B

Text by Montserrat Capellas Espuny