For almost three months, Jesús Núñez Rengel, a Venezuelan researcher and doctoral student at the Institute of Biomedicine and Applied Sciences of the Universidad de Oriente, carried out a research internship at the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (CEDENNA) at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. This valuable exchange was made possible by funding from the Latin American Academy of Sciences and the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, based in Washington.
Núñez’s stay at CEDENNA was part of his doctoral training, focused on the synthesis of coordination compounds. “We created precursors linked to vanadium clusters. These precursors were then functionalized with organic compounds and characterized using various spectroscopic methods, including X-ray diffraction,” explained Núñez.
A key objective of this research was to coordinate these compounds with lanthanide ions to improve their magnetic properties, thus opening new possibilities for application in the field of magnetic materials. This project is part of the activities of CEDENNA’s Laboratory of Molecular Magnetism and Molecular Materials, where Núñez was supervised and guided by the team led by Dr. Diego Venegas Yazigi.
Dr. Venegas Yazigi highlighted Núñez’s contribution to the laboratory: “Jesús has been a great contribution; this is his second stay here, and he has proven to be a very intelligent and capable person, with a remarkable skill for chemical synthesis, which is essential for a good materials chemist”. The Chilean researcher also expressed his hope that Núñez will continue his academic development and return to Chile in the future to collaborate on more research projects at CEDENNA.
For his part, Núñez expressed his gratitude to Chile, USACH and CEDENNA for the opportunity to advance his research in an environment that gave him access to high-tech equipment and a group of top-level researchers. “I will always think about coming back,” he said, stressing the positive impact this experience has had on his professional training and his desire to continue collaborating with CEDENNA in the future.
