Two IREC researchers, Lucile Bernadet and Alicia Ruiz-Caridad, have been awarded the prestigious Ramón y Cajal Fellowships (RyC 2024), which begin in September 2026, in the thematic areas of Energy and Transport and Information and Communication Technologies, respectively. The fellowships have a duration of five years.

The Ramón y Cajal programme aims to attract and retain outstanding researchers, from Spain and abroad, at Spanish R&D institutions. It supports the development of independent research careers and facilitates the recipients’ progression towards permanent positions within the Spanish System of Science, Technology and Innovation.

The fellowships are awarded through a highly competitive selection process that evaluates candidates’ scientific excellence, research achievements, leadership potential, professional experience, and capacity to establish and lead an independent line of research.

Lucile Bernadet, researcher from the Nanoionics and Fuel Cells department, earned a RyC2024 grant with a research line focused on Solid Oxide Cells and stacks for efficient hydrogen and renewable fuel production. Lucile’s principal research interests are centred on developing disruptive materials and on using innovative manufacturing techniques to produce a new family of Solid Oxide Cells technology able to withstand harsh operating conditions such as pressure, high working loads or contaminants. She received her PhD in Materials Science from the University of Bordeaux in 2016 after 3 years of research between the ICMCB-CNRS and CEA-LITEN. She joined IREC in 2017 as a post-doctoral researcher and became a tenure-track researcher in 2021. Her scientific production includes 21 publications that have been cited over 750 times, with an h-index of 15.

Alicia Ruiz-Caridad is a researcher in theNanoionics and Fuel Cells department and received a RyC 2024 grant to consolidate her research line on the integration of solid-state ionics and functional oxide materials for programmable, energy-efficient photonic technologies. Her work focuses on photoionic materials, non-volatile optical devices, rare-earth-doped oxides and the integration of novel materials with silicon photonic platforms for applications in sensing, optical communications, and emerging photonic information processing. She obtained her PhD in Physics from Université Paris-Saclay in 2021 after conducting her doctoral research at C2N-CNRS. She subsequently carried out postdoctoral research at Empa–ETH Zurich and the University of Basel, before joining IREC in 2024 as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow.

Acknowledgements (in Spanish): Las ayudas RYC2024-049668-I y RYC2024-050500-I están financiadas por MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 y por el FSE+.