Current group members
Piret Villo, PhD
Piret did her PhD with Dr. Lauri Vares at University of Tartu and with Prof. Peter Somfai at KTH and Lund University. During that time she looked into syntheses of analogues to an acetogenin – a bioactive natural product, as well as asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of α-amido-β-keto esters. After that she spent another year with Dr Vares studying new methodology how to functionalize biomass platform molecules. Her subsequent three-year postdoc work was done with Prof. Berit Olofsson at Stockholm University on hypervalent iodine chemistry making diaryliodonium salts and using them as arylating reagents. She is currently working on methodology development and kinetic studies of electrosynthetic reactions.
Jai White, PhD
Jai did his undergraduate and honours studies at the University of Newcastle, Australia. From 2019 until 2023, Jai completed his PhD at KTH in the Applied Electrochemistry division at the Department of Chemical Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Ann Cornell. His thesis work focused on the electrooxidation of glycerol in alkaline media on Pd-based catalysts. Upon completing his PhD, he joined the Lundberg lab as a postdoc. He is currently focused on the electrochemical reduction of ethers and the development of electrochemical techniques for the analysis of organic transformations.
Pedro Jesus Tortajada Palmero, PhD
Pedro did his undergraduate and master studies in organic chemistry at the University of Barcelona up to 2018. Afterwards, he worked for one year as R&D technician for Hebron, in the field of blowing agents for the plastic industry. In 2019, Pedro joined the Martín-Matute group at Stockholm University. During his PhD studies, his research focused on organometallic catalysis with a sustainable perspective. The wide range of topics covered by his thesis include base metal catalysis, photo- and electrosynthesis as well as catalyst immobilization. After completing his PhD in 2025, Pedro joined the Lundberg lab. He is currently focused on the electrochemical valorization of biomass with the goal of enabling alternative and more sustainable feedstocks for the chemical industry.
Carlo Caianiello, PhD
Carlo completed his undergraduate and master's studies in Industrial Chemistry Science and Technologies at the University of Naples Federico II in 2020, within the Physical Chemistry of Colloids and Interfaces group. In the same year, he obtained a doctoral position at TU Clausthal under the supervision of Prof. R. Wilhelm, where he worked on the synthesis of new redox-active molecules for neutral pH aqueous flow batteries. After completing his PhD in March 2025, Carlo joined the Lundberg lab at KTH. Through a collaborative project with Assitant Professor Amirreza Khataee at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Professor Mårten Ahlquist at the Department of Chemistry, Carlo's current work focuses on the development of metal-free aqueous flow batteries.
Luca Massaro, PhD
Luca completed his undergraduate and master’s studies in organic chemistry at Sapienza University of Rome (2012–2017). In 2018, he joined the Andersson group at Stockholm University for his PhD, focusing on convergent and tandem strategies in iridium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of olefins. After earning his PhD in 2022, he was awarded VR postdoctoral funding to spend two years at Scripps Research (CA, USA) in the group of Prof. Phil S. Baran, working on nickel catalysis and radical chemistry for strategic C–C bond formation. In 2025, he continued his postdoctoral studies in the Lundberg lab, where he is now developing electrochemical transformations of thioethers.
Ruzal Sitdikov, PhD
Ruzal completed his Ph.D. in supramolecular organic chemistry at Kazan Federal University (Prof. Ivan Stoikov), enriched by an Erasmus internship at KU Leuven (Prof. Wim Dehaen). His postdoctoral trajectory initially focused on glycochemistry at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Visby Scholar, Prof. Olof Ramström) and Åbo Akademi University (Johan Gadolin Scholar, Prof. Reko Leino). Subsequently, he specialized in electrochemical cross-coupling and isotopic labeling at KAUST (Prof. Magnus Rueping), followed by research into metalla-electrocatalysis at Uppsala University (Prof. Oscar Verho). Ruzal joined the Prof. Lundberg laboratory in 2026, where he focuses on the development of novel sustainable electrosynthetic methodologies.
Sudipta Ponra, PhD
Sudipta completed his PhD under the supervision of Prof. K. C. Majumdar, focusing on the synthesis, reactivity, and biological activity of novel heterocycles. He subsequently spent several years at ENSCP–Chimie ParisTech and the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), where he worked on synergistic dual catalysis, asymmetric electro-organocatalysis, and thio-Passerini reactions. To broaden his scientific expertise, he then joined the Andersson group at Stockholm University, where he conducted research in asymmetric catalysis. In addition, he gained valuable industrial experience in API process development at i-CLeHS CSB2D, ENSCP–Chimie ParisTech, in collaboration with ORGAPHARM, France. He also contributed as a senior research scientist to drug discovery and development programs at TCG Lifesciences (CRO), Kolkata, India. Subsequently, he expanded his expertise in the electrochemical synthesis of bioactive and medicinally relevant molecules while working with Dr. Oscar Verho in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at Uppsala University. He is currently focused on the development of electrochemical methodologies.
Mainak Mitra, PhD
Mainak completed his B.Sc. (2008) and M.Sc. (2010) in chemistry from RKM Vidyamandira affiliated to University of Calcutta and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Then he obtained his PhD degree in bioinorganic chemistry in December 2014 from Lund University, Sweden under the supervision of Professor Ebbe Nordlander. His thesis was focused on catalytic C-H bond oxidation reactions using high-valent Fe-oxo complexes. After obtaining PhD, he started his independent research career as a DST Fast Track Young Scientist (2015) at IACS, Kolkata and worked on catalytic transfer hydrogenation. From Jun 2017 onwards he is working as an assistant professor in the department of chemistry, Burdwan Raj College, India. Presently he has joined the Lundberg lab as a postdoctoral research associate (2026) and is working on organo-electrocatalysis.
Malin Lill, PhD student
Malin is enrolled as PhD student since August 2022 after receiving her MSc in Chemical Engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology earlier the same year after a diploma work in our group. She is targeting method development for electrosynthetic transformations with a particlar focus on reductive strategies.
Ellymay Goossens, PhD student
Ellymay received her master's degree in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Gothenburg and did her thesis work on development of an aerobic oxidative N-heterocyclic carbene catalyzed synthesis of highly functionalized benzene derivatives in the group of professor Henrik Sundén. She enrolled as a PhD student in January 2023 and is currently working on method development of electroreductive transformations.
Ziwei Fan, PhD student
Ziwei is a PhD student, working on electrosynthesis transformations and mechanistic studies thereof. She received her Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, China. From 2020 to 2022, she pursued her graduate studies in Chemical Engineering for Energy and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Since September 2022, Ziwei has been enrolled as a PhD student, initally focusing on chemical sensing, and later on electrosynthesis transformations and mechanistic studies.
Alexandros Xanthopoulos, PhD student
Alexandros received his MSc degree in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry from the university of Gothenburg in 2024. He did his thesis in Dr. Carl-Johan Wallentin’s group on the synthesis and development of PCET-inducing photocatalysts and C-C bond formation via the β-scission of alkoxy radicals. He joined the group as a PhD student in September of 2024 in a collaborative project with the group of Professor Anders Riisager at DTU. Alex works on method development of electrochemical transformations.
Darius Pakarinen, PhD student
Darius is a PhD student in the group on 25% and the remaining 75% at the Division of Applied Electrochemistry (Dept. of Chemical Engineering, KTH) with Assistant Professor Amirreza Khatae and Professor Rakel Wreland Lindström, working on organic redox flow batteries. He carried out his MSc diploma thesis work on Lewis acid catalysis in the group during spring semester 2021 for his M.Sc. in Engineering.
Astrid Kjaer Steffensen, PhD student
Astrid is a PhD student in the group on ~25% and spends the rest of her time at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) with Professor Anders Riisager. Astrid enrolled as doctoral student in 2023 and works on electrochemical carboxylation on biomass-derived compounds with the purpose of creating renewable monomers for polymer applications. Astrid received her MSc degree in applied chemistry with focus on catalysis and green chemistry from DTU. She did her thesis work in the Riisager group working on catalyst development and mechanistic studies of furfural oxidation.
Niels Pijcke, PhD student
Niels obtained his Master’s degree in Molecular Life Sciences from Radboud University in Nijmegen. He conducted his Master’s thesis at Acerta Pharma, where he worked on establishing electrochemical nickel-catalyzed reductive cross-coupling of phenyl glutarimides, both in batch and flow systems. Since June 2025, Niels has been enrolled as industrial PhD student with AstraZeneca focused on the development of electrosynthetic protocols of pharmaceutical relevance.
Linn Andersson, PhD student
Linn obtained her Master’s degree from KTH. After joining the Lundberg group during the fall 2025 for her diploma work on selective electrosynthetic modification on alcohols, she continued as PhD in the group in February 2026.
Pallav Suman, visiting PhD student
Pallav received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Ranchi University, India, in 2021, and completed his master’s in Chemistry at the Central University of Punjab, India, in 2023. During his master's studies, he joined the Organic Synthesis and Catalysis Lab under the supervision of Dr. Biplab Banerjee. He initially worked on the photo-induced, photocatalyst-free synthesis of pharmacologically significant heterocycles and late-stage functionalization of drug molecules. Later on, for his master's thesis work, he focused on the metal-free synthesis of carbamoylated N-heterocyclic scaffolds. In 2024, he moved to Estonia to pursue his doctoral studies, joining the Synthetic Flow Chemistry group at Tallinn University of Technology under the supervision of Prof. Maksim Ošeka, where he was working on electrochemically driven glycosylation reactions in flow. He joined the Lundberg lab as an exchange PhD student and is currently working on electrochemical valorization of biomass.
Caterina Momoli, visiting PhD student
Caterina graduated in Organic Chemistry from Sapienza University of Rome in 2019. She joined the Lundberg lab as a second-year PhD student at the Department of Physical and Chemical Sciences at the University of L’Aquila for a 6-month internship in the first half of 2025 and has returned for another stay from April 2026.
Olle Granquist
Olle is a student in the Degree Programme in Engineering Chemistry at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering in 2025 and is currently doing his graduate studies in Molecular Science and Engineering. During the spring of 2026, he is doing a project in the Lundberg Lab supervised by Ruzal Sitdikov (PhD), focusing on sulfide-mediated electrosynthesis.
Daniel Czop
Daniel received his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Marist University, United States. He has joined the Lundberg Lab for a 10 week project course as a part of his master's in Molecular Science and Engineering at KTH.