The Analytical Scientist / Power List / 2025 / How do we help today's analytical scientists become tomorrow's science leaders? / Lourdes Ramos

Lourdes Ramos

Senior Research Scientist, Department of Instrumental Analysis and Environmental Chemistry, Institute of Organic Chemistry (CSIC), Madrid, Spain

Meet Lourdes Ramos

Throughout my professional life, I have been honored to meet and, on occasions, work with several renowned analytical chemists. I consider some of them leaders within their respective fields of specialization and, in fact, a number of them are recognized as such worldwide. In some cases, these analytical chemistry leaders are magnetic and expansive persons, or have a special and distinctive charisma. In other cases, they are rather shy people who hardly take a microphone to participate in a general discussion. However, when they speak, one immediately realizes that everybody listens with attention. Whatever their personality, I think that many of them share a series of professional and personal characteristics and skills that, in certain aspects, made the difference.

Among the attributes and aptitudes that contributed to the uniqueness of these leaders, I would highlight the following features as desirable for our tomorrow´s leaders:

  • Deep knowledge and understanding of your specialization field and continuous update of that knowledge throughout your entire professional lifetime.

  • Believe in yourself: Work hard and follow your dreams.

  • Dare to try what you devise based on your strong knowledge; the only risk is learning for the future.

  • Be a mentor, but also the coach for your students.

  • Always listen and be kind: all ideas can be valuable.

  • Your team is your strength: take care of them and support their professional development; celebrate their successes as if they were your own.

  • Collaborate with colleagues from the same area, but also from other research fields: scientific boundaries are never the limit but the beginning of something new and exciting.

  • Balance your professional and personal life.

All of this does not actually guarantee that you will become a science leader, but it probably means that you will have an intense, pleasant, and fulfilling professional life shared with a group of good friends. This is undoubtedly also a model of a successful scientist and person.

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