Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CIQUS)
Department of Physical Chemistry and Department of Organic Chemistry
University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Functional Materials and Nanotechnology Group
Former group members, visiting professors, researchers and students (by inverse chronological order)
Daniela Reggio
PhD student
Student of the doctorate in "Materials Science" since 2016, she has been working within the NANORESTART project, and defended her PhD thesis titled "Testing, optimization and validation of Surface Enhanced Raman (SERS) sensors for the detection of small molecules in cultural heritage materials" (supervisor M. Lazzari) in October 2021. She got the highest final evaluation Sobresaliente Cum Laude.
He spent 4 months (March to June 2021) at the USC as a recipient of an Erasmus+ traineeship agreement focused on biodegradation of industrial polymers, in strong collaboration with A. M. Otero Casal and S. Balboa Mendez of the Faculty of Biology. He presented on September 2021 part of the activity carried out in Santiago de Compostela defending a Master thesis at the Universitá degli Studi di Torino ("Biodegradation of polystyrene by Zophobas Morio larvae and guts deriving bacteria" - M. Zanetti local supervisor, M. Lazzari co-supervisor).
Edoardo Miravalle
Visiting Master student
Student of the doctorate in "Ciencia y Tecnología Química", she has been working on the development of new fotoluminiscent and electroactive materials (supervisors: Rumbo and Torneiro)
Maria Jesús Roca
PhD student
Student of the doctorate in "Ciencia y Tecnología Química", she has been working on the synthesis and application of water-soluble tetraphenylmethane dendrimers, and defended her PhD thesis titled “Funcionalización periférica de dendrímeros rígidos de tetrafenilmetano” (supervisors: Torneiro and Lazzari) in January 2020. She got the highest final evaluation Sobresaliente Cum Laude.
Sandra Campaña
PhD student
She has been working in our lab as a fellow of the Doctorate programme of Physical and Chemical Sciences of the University of L'Aquila (Italy), between September 2018 and April 2019.
She finally defended her PhD thesis focused on the study of degradation of plastics in contemporary art in December 2019
Natalia Macro
Visiting PhD student
She has been spending one month (September 2019) as a recipient of an Erasmus+ Training for Staff fellowship through an agreement with the Academy of Fine Arts of L’Aquila (Italy). Her research focused on the the application of advanced analytical techniques in the characterization of cellulose degradation products.
Mariagrazia Tortora
Visiting Researcher
Student of the doctorate in "Ciencia y Tecnología Química", has been working on the synthesis and application of linear-dendritic block copolymers (supervisors: M. Lazzari and M. Torneiro), defending his PhD thesis in May 2018. He got the highest final evaluation Sobresaliente Cum Laude.
Daniel González Fernández
PhD student
Eduardo Bordallo
Post-doc researcher
Recipient of a Banco Santander-USC fellowship for predoctoral stays of Latin America researchers, he has been working in the CIQUS lab in 2012-2014, finally defending his thesis on the modification and self-assembly in aqueous solution of amphiphilic graft copolymers based on oxidized carboxymethylcellulose in December 2014 (supervisor M. Lazzari). He has been working again in the laboratory as post-doc researcher, from June 2017 to May 2018.
He is actually working at the Cuban Research Institute of Sugar Cane, Havana, Cuba.
PhD student of the doctorate in "Ciencia de Materiales” from 2010, in 2021 he was definitively dropped from the doctoral program without defending the thesis. He has been working on the synthesis of fluorinated polymers and their application for the fabrication of nanostructured materials till March 2018 (supervisor: M. Lazzari).
Manuel Gómez
PhD student
Student of the Degree in Chemistry and Sustainable Technologies of the the Universitá di Venezia Ca' Foscari (Italy). Recipient of an Erasmus+ Traineeship fellowship, he spent 2 months in the group during the summer 2017 (July-September). His training focused on the acquisition of some basic skills and competences on nanoimprint lithography, and different techniques for the characterization of materials
Nicoló Pajer
Visting student
Student of the Degree in Chemistry and Sustainable Technologies of the the Universitá di Venezia Ca' Foscari (Italy). Recipient of an Erasmus+ Traineeship fellowship, he spent 2 months in the group during the summer 2017 (July-September). His training focused on the acquisition of some basic skills and competences on nanoimprint lithography, and different techniques for the characterization of materials
Nicoló Pajer
Visting Master student
Moira Bertasa
Visiting PhD student
She has been working in our lab for a short stay on May and June 2017, developing part of her PhD activity focused on the use of polymer gels for artworks cleaning. In November 2017 she defended her PhD thesis in Chemical and Material Sciences at the Universitá degli Studi di Torino, being a fellow of the Institute for the Conservation and Valorization of Cultural Heritage (ICVBC-CNR, Milan, Italy).
PhD in Chemistry at the University of Vigo in 2005, post-doc fellow at the University of Valladolid (2006) and research assistant at the Institute of Material Science in Madrid (ICMM-CSIC, 2007-2010). 5 years' Post-doc researcher (Parga Pondal contract) at the USC till the end of 2014. Her current research interests concern synthesis and characterization of multifunctional porous materials for biotechnological applications.
Marina Nieto Suárez
Research associate
M. Khaled Mawaldi
Master student
Student of the Master in Chemical Investigation Research and Industrial Chemistry (supervisor Lazzari) in 2015-2016. Recipient of an Erasmus Mundus - Peace II Fellowship
P. Predeep
Visiting professor
Julio Urzúa
PhD student
PhD student in the group (2010-2015) and recipient of a fellowship (Beca Chile) awarded by the Chile Government for PhD studies abroad. Previously he got his Bachelor of Science – Chemistry at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (2009).
During his PhD studies he worked on the development of the first rigid dendrimers based on tetraphenylmethane (supervisor M. Torneiro), and defended his thesis in June 2015.
He is actually working on the development of new applications of ionic liquids at the CILIS (Centro Interdisciplinario de Líquidos Iónicos) of Santiago de Chile, in the organic synthesis unit.
Ana M. Gómez Neo
Visiting professor
Visiting Professor (4 months, 2015) working in the synthesis of new hypercrosslinked polymers. Assistant Professor at the Department of Organic and Inorganic Chemistry of the Universidad de Extremadura since 2007.
More information on her activities in the Universidad de Extremadura Group web site
Fekri Laatar
Visiting PhD student
He has been working our lab in 2014 (3 months) and again at the end of 2015 (1 month) with a Tunisian grant. His research is focused on the preparation and characterization of thermosetting polyester nanocomposite using a Tunisian clay (supervisor Prof. E. Srasra), at the National Research Centre for Materials Science, Tunisia
Visiting Professor of the National Institute of Technology Calicut (Kerala, India), thanks to the Research Excellence Program - USC-India (PEIN); he spent a short period in the CIQUS lab in May-June 2014, trying to establish a collaboration in the area of Organic Electronics and Photonics, through the development of advanced materials and nanocomposite techniques.
For further information on his activities visit the personal web pages
Anna Malafronte
Visiting PhD student
Recipient of a predoctoral contract within an ERA NET Project (Matera plus-hybrid organic-based nanostructured devices for applications), she spent a short research period (November - December 2011) in the CIQUS lab working on the use of block copolymers (BCPs) for the fabrication of nanocomposite materials. Then, she started her PhD in Chemical Sciences at the University of Naples Federico II, under the supervision of Prof. C. De Rosa and Prof. F. Auriemma, and further visited the CIQUS lab in the period April-May 2013 as doctorate student.
She got her PhD in June 2015 discussing a thesis entitled “Development of Lab-on-Chip Integrated Systems based on Block Copolymers for Advanced Sensing”.
She is actually working as temporary researcher in the research group “Polymer Physics”, headed by Prof. C. De Rosa, at the Department of Chemical Sciences of the University of Naples Federico II
