Helena Lundberg

Helena leads a research group at the Division of Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, focusing on synthetic method development and mechanistic studies of catalytic and electrosynthetic transformations. In 2024, she was promoted to Associate Professor from her previous position as Assistant Professor (2021). Helena has been a principal investigator at KTH since 2019 and was appointed the title Docent in Sustainable Synthesis in 2021. Helena has a Bachelor’s degree in theoretical philosophy from Lund University and a Master’s degree in organic chemistry from Stockholm University. In 2015 she received her Ph. D. degree under the guidance of Professor Hans Adolfsson at Stockholm University, having worked with method development and mechanistic studies of asymmetric transfer hydrogenation and catalytic dehydrative amide formation. After a year with postdoctoral research at Stockholm University, working with DFT calculations with Professor Fahmi Himo, she joined Professor Donna G. Blackmond as a postdoctoral fellow in 2017 at Scripps Research in La Jolla, USA, conducting mechanistic studies on radical transformations developed in the Baran lab at the same institution. Helena's research group at KTH currently focuses on activation and functionalization of strong polarized sigma bonds using reductive electrosynthesis and Lewis acid catalysis. Helena is the recipient of various grants, fellowships and distinctions, including an ERC Starting Grant (2024), a Future Research Leader grant by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (2022), a JSP fellowship for the Bürgenstock conference (2022) and the Sigrid Arrhenius Award (2015).