JOSE H. ZAGAL is Full-Professor, Faculty of
Chemistry and Biology, University of Santiago de Chile, Ph.D in Chemistry Case Western Reserve University,
USA
(1978) and was postdoctoral fellow at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1982. He was awarded the Presidential Chair in Science
in 1996 by a Committee chaired by a Nobel prize in Chemistry Rudolph Marcus. He has published over 160 papers, 5 book
chapters and 3 patents. He is coauthor of two books. He is also member of the
Editorial Board of the Journal of Applied Electrochemistry and
of Electrocatalysis.
He has contributed in the area of electrocatalysis, electrodes modified with
metal macrocyclics, biological molecules, the catalysis of the reduction of
oxygen and many other reactions of relevance, conductive polymers,
electrochemical sensors and in the establishment of non-linear correlations
between thermodynamic properties of catalysts and their electrochemical reactivity.
He also has contributed in the field of
corrosion. His well-known volcano correlations for the electrocatalytic
properties of surface-confined metal complexes have been featured in many
reviews, in a cover of PCCP in 2007,
in textbooks, for example by Bockris and Khan. His work has been mentioned in the “Electrochemical
Dictionary” by Bard, Inzelt and Scholtz and in the Handbook of Fuel Cells by
Vielstich, Lamm and Geisteger. More recently he has become involved in the
development of modified micro-electrodes for sensors applications and in
fundamental studies of electron transfer processes using self-assembled
monolayers. He has supervised 23
undergraduate thesis and 18 Ph.D.thesis and 4 postdocts. Zagal has additional talents and hobbies apart
from his interest in electrochemistry. He writes poetry, plays several musical
instruments including the Scottish bagpipes, paints, and draws cartoons (some
caricatures were published in Interface, The Electrochem. Soc. in 2002. While a
grad student at CWRU he produced, with Prof. Mateescu, a short cartoon movie
featuring some of the faculty at CWRU. He can also be found enjoying his
collection of full-size complete antique railroad coaches and cabooses plus a
full-size steam locomotive and working big models of steam locomotives and
railroad cars.
