Adrián was born in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, in the north-west of Spain. He went to uni in his hometown and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry (Licenciado Químico) from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2009. He spent the last year of his studies as an Erasmus student at the University of Heidelberg, where he had the opportunity to work for a couple of months under the supervision of Prof. A. Stephen K. Hashmi. Having enjoyed his time there, he chose to return to carry out his Diploma thesis in the Hashmi lab on domino gold-catalysed transformations.

For his doctoral studies Adrián moved from sunny Baden-Wurttemberg, to the very cold but beautiful Scotland. In St. Andrews, he investigated the reactivity of mono- and diaurated species bearing N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands under the supervision of Prof. Steven P. Nolan. He obtained his PhD in organometallic chemistry in 2014. As a result of his work he received the International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI) award, which recognises and encourages outstanding work by a graduate student in precious metals research.

For his postdoc he moved back to Germany to work with Prof. Frank Glorius at Münster University. In the Glorius group, he worked on the development of screening technologies to discover new photocatalytic transformations.

In January 2018, Adrián began his independent academic career as a Junior Group Leader in the organic chemistry department at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal (BUW). Early the same year, he was awarded the Liebig fellowship from the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (FCI) to support his research.