Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Alfonso Castiñeiras Campos

Head of research group

ALFONSO CASTIÑEIRAS CAMPOS was born in 1942 in Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain). In 1969 he graduated from the city's University, where in 1974 he received his PhD for work on adducts of tin tetrahalides with dithiooxamides that had been carried out in the then Faculty of Science under the direction of Profs. José R. Masaguer Fernández and José S. Casas Fernández. After 2 years as interim Assistant Professor in this Faculty, he moved to the Universidad Autónoma, Madrid, as untenured Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. There, in the Physical ChemistryInstitute Rocasolano of the Consejo Superior de Investigación Científica, he was trained in the use of X-ray diffractometry for structural analysis of single crystals by Research Profs. Severino García Blanco and Sagrario Martínez Carrero. In 1982 he returned to the University of Santiago de Compostela as tenured Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry in the Faculty of Pharmacy, and since 1991 he has been a Full Professor. He was Secretary of the Inorganic ChemistryDepartment of the University of Santiago de Compostela since its creation in 1986 until 1989,and Director of this Department from 1990 to 1993. In 1987 he acted as the University's Director of Sports. In 1986 he set up the University X-Ray Diffraction Service, which he managed until 1999, and which has benefitted from his numerous visits to the Inorganic Chemistry Institute of the University of Tübingen (Germany), where he has worked with Profs. Joachim Strähle and Wolfgang Hiller.

Prof. Castiñeiras is a member of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry and its Crystallography and Inorganic Chemistry groups (between 1987 and 1991 he sat on the board of the Inorganic Chemistry Group); the Portuguese Chemical Society; the American Chemical Society; the Society of German Chemists; the British Crystallographic Association; the French Crystallography Association; and the Amerrican Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Polyhedron and of the Scientific Council of Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie.