Pérez Madrigal, Maria del Mar

Short biography

Dra. Maria del Mar Pérez Madrigal is a Beatriz Galindo Fellow and lecturer at the Chemical Department, at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). She obtained her PhD in Polymers and Biopolymers in 2015 (FPI-UPC Fellowship) under the supervision of Prof. Elaine Armelin and Prof. Carlos Alemán (IMEM group, UPC) and visited the University of Regensburg (Germany) for a 5-month research secondment in 2014. Her PhD thesis was awarded with the “Special Doctoral Awards 2017” (year 2014-2015, Àmbit d'Enginyeria Industrial, UPC).

After receiving her PhD, she carried out a postdoctoral research stay at the University of Warwick (Coventry, UK, 2016-2018) and, later, at the University of Birmingham (Birmingham, UK, 2018-2020) during which she participated and lead a number of research projects, as well as technology transfer projects in the field of polymer chemistry, biomaterials and hydrogel-based systems for (bio)technological applications.

Dr. Pérez-Madrigal has contributed to more than 50 articles in high-impact peer-reviewed journals and has participated in numerous scientific conferences. Her scientific career has been recognized nationally and internationally on several occasions, including a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020 Action – MSCA-IF Grant Agreement No. 703415 DN-Cartilogel, 2016-2018), a Betriu de Pinós Fellowship (October 2020, awarded but not accepted) and a Junior Galindo Fellowship (March 2021, BG20/00216), as well as receiving
several awards at conferences.

She is currently co-directing a PhD thesis and being the leader of several projects. Specifically, her research aims at developing novel and functional (bio)material platforms for technical and biomedical applications by exploiting the benefits of polymers and biopolymers. Her research lines include:
- Design and application of suitable scaffolds (i.e. nanomembranes, fibrous mats, hydrogels) that display the structural, mechanical, and electrochemical properties needed for a specific biological context – tissue engineering.
- Development of electrochemical supercapacitors based on biopolymers.
- Exploiting click-chemistry approaches, as well as screening novel gelators and polymeric precursors, to obtain hydrogels for biomedical applications.
- Engineering new applications for natural polymers.
- Understanding the effect of material properties on cellular behaviour: interaction polymeric materials/ biological systems.