Dr. Ilich A. Ibarra was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1981. He completed a BSc in chemistry at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM, Mexico) in 2005. In 2006 he worked at the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares (ININ, Mexico) in collaboration with the Instituto de Investigaciones en Materiales (UNAM, Mexico) under the supervision of Prof. Silvia Bulbulian, Prof. Enrique Lima and Prof. Pedro Bosch.

Later, in 2010 he obtained his PhD in Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Martin Schröder at The University of Nottingham (UK) working on the synthesis and hydrogen adsorption properties of porous Scandium metal-organic frameworks. He then took a postdoctoral position, 2010-2012, at The University of Texas at Austin (USA) where he worked under the supervision Prof. Simon Humphrey studying the synthesis and characterisation of phosphine coordination materials (PCMs).

Then in 2013 he was awarded as a Wenner-Gren researcher at Stockholm University (Sweden) under the supervision of Prof. Xiaodong Zou. In 2014, he moved to UNAM (Institute of Materials Research), working as an Assistant Professor. In 2017 he was promoted to Associate Professor and awarded as outstanding reviewer from the magazine Dalton Transactions. In 2019 he was awarded with the Young Investigators Award in Exact Sciences, UNAM, Mexico. In 2020 he was designated as Member of the Advisory Board of Chemical Communications (RSC) UK, awarded with the Young Investigators Award in Exact Sciences, Mexican Academy of Sciences, Mexico, designated as Member of the Advisory Board of Dalton Transactions (RSC) UK, and appointed as Vice Principal of the Materials Research Institute, UNAM.