Ricardo was born in Venezuela in 1993. He started his studies at the Simón Bolivar University in Caracas (Venezuela) in 2010, and in 2014 moved to Uppsala University (Sweden), where he received his B.Sc. in Chemistry (2015) under the supervision of Dr. Anders Thapper and Prof. Sascha Ott. He continued his master studies there, where he specialized in ultrafast spectroscopy to study excited-state proton transfer and energy transfer processes, supervised by Dr. Burkhard Zietz and Prof. Leif Hammarström, and receiving his M.Sc. diploma in 2016. He also received the Swedish Chemical Society Award for the Best Master Thesis on the same year.

He then moved on to the University of Zurich (Switzerland), where he pursued doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Peter Hamm. There, he specialized in ultrafast time-resolved vibrational spectroscopy in one (TRIR) and two dimensions (2D-IR), and other ultrafast spectroscopic methods ranging from terahertz to UV/Vis. After completing his Ph.D. in 2021, he moved to the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) as a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Julia A. Weinstein. There, he studied the mechanisms for vibrational/IR control of electron transfer in Pt and Ir complexes, developed 2D-IR spectroelectrochemistry and applied it to the study of one- and two-electron redox species of transition metal complexes, and further developed his research interests in the design, synthesis and study of organometallic complexes.

In February 2023, he joined the group of Prof. Eric Vauthey (University of Geneva, CH) as a postdoctoral fellow, bringing 2D-IR and transient 2D-IR spectroscopies to Geneva. The same year, he was awarded an SNSF Ambizione grant to begin his independent research, hosted by the Vauthey group.

He is specialized in ultrafast spectroscopic methods and their application to coordination complexes, and is interested in novel techniques and strategies such as IR control, and the study of proton-coupled electron transfer reactions using multidimensional spectroscopies. He is passionate about both synthesis and spectroscopy, and is particularly interested in transition metal hydride complexes as key models for the study of proton-coupled electron transfer reactions. He has co-authored over 22 publications and a book chapter in various areas of multidimensional spectroscopy, photochemistry, inorganic (photo)chemistry, and chemical education.

In his free time, Ricardo enjoys playing the piano, photography, and electronics.

Favourite Music: Instrumental / Classical.

Favourite Food: Sushi.