Paolo Melchiorre was born in 1973 in Camerino, Italy. He studied Chemistry at the University of Bologna – Alma Mater Studiorum (Italy), where he graduated in 1999. He received his PhD in Chemistry in 2003 at Bologna University working in the area of asymmetric catalysis, under the direction of Professor Achille Umani-Ronchi and the supervision of Professor Pier Giorgio Cozzi. In 2002, he spent a period in Denmark working with Professor Karl Anker Jørgensen at the “Center for Catalysis”, Århus University, where his studies centered on asymmetric organocatalysis. In 2003, Paolo worked as a postdoctoral associate with Professor Giuseppe Bartoli, at the Industrial Chemistry Faculty of the Bologna University.

In October 2007, he took a permanent position as an Assistant Professor at Bologna University. In September 2009, Paolo joined the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona as an ICREA (Catalan Institution of Research and Advanced Studies) Professor and ICIQ Group Leader.

Paolo has received the “G. Ciamician” Medal, awarded by the Italian Chemical Society (2007), a JSPS Fellowship under the FY2013 Program for Research in Japan, the 2016 Prize for Scientific Excellence from the Royal Spanish Chemical Society (RSEQ), and the 2019 “G. Modena” Medal from the Italian Chemical Society. He was also nominated Liebig Lecturer 2008 by the Organic Division of the German Chemical Society and he received the 2021 Pedler Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).

He was featured in the “Author Profile section” of Angewandte Chemie (ACIE 2009, 48, 3389). Since 2019, Paolo is an Associate Editor of Chemical Science, the flag-ship journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). In 2020, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

In 2011, Paolo has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to carry out the 5-year project “ORGA-NAUT: Exploring Chemical Reactivity with Organocatalysis”, while in 2016 he has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to carry out the 5-year project “CATA-LUX: Light-Driven Asymmetric Organocatalysis”, both funded by the European Research Council.

Paolo has authored more than 130 publications in international scientific journals. His papers have received more than 12500 citations. He has delivered more than 190 invited lectures and seminars at the national and international level.