Dr. Jelena Radjenovic

Jelena Radjenovic graduated in Chemical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 2004. She obtained a PhD cum laude from the University of Barcelona, Spain, in 2009. From 2009 to 2014 she worked as a research fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia. In 2014, Jelena relocated to the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA, www.icra.cat) in Girona, Spain, with a Marie-Curie fellowship. She was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant ELECTRON4WATER in 2016 to develop new nanostructured electrode materials for electrochemical water treatment. Since 2018, she has been an ICREA Research Professor (www.icrea.cat). In 2023, she was awarded the ERC Proof of Concept grant GRAPHEC to upscale the technology developed and patented within the ELECTRON4WATER project, focused on electrochemical destruction of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) using graphene sponge electrodes. Jelena was also recently awarded an ERC Consolidator grant ELECTROmonoLITH, focused on selective electrochemical separation and recovery of lithium and other metals from industrial wastewaters and brines.  

Jelena has over 70 scientific publications, including 6 book chapters; in total >6,000 citations (Scopus database, 12/2023), H-index = 35; over 100 participations at international conferences, seminars, workshops, >20 invited and keynote lectures. She is an Editor of the Journal of Hazardous Materials (ranked 4^th in Env. Eng.). Jelena was awarded the FCRi Catalan National Research Award for Young Talent in 2021, the highest research recognition in Catalonia (Catalonia receives >40% of ERC grants in Spain).

Jelena´s research interests are at the interface of electrochemistry, nanotechnology, (waste)water treatment and chemistry, focused on developing advanced treatment systems for energy-efficient removal of persistent and toxic pollutants from water and resource recovery.