Who am I? I am an energetic, creative, female scientist with a solid expertise in Material Science and Technology. I have successfully implemented an engineering approach to guide the development of functional nanohybrids through general and simple routes. Throughout my work, I have introduced important mechanisms on the cooperative coupling of dissimilar materials in single structures, which represents a fundamental knowledge for the creation of a new-generation of nano and macro hybrid materials.
My experience - I graduated in Mechanical Engineering (Colombia) and obtained a grant for a student mobility exchange funded by the European Commission that brought me to Ghent University (Belgium) to study Materials Science. I obtained my PhD from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) in 2008, and in 2009 I joined the Advanced Manufacturing Research Center with Boeing (England), turning my focus of research on composite components for aviation. In 2012 I started as postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Liberato Manna at IIT (Italy), working on the mechanics of nanocomposites. Through this experience i learnt how to assembly spontaneosly different types of colloidal nanocrystals, including the modulation of their complex interactions in polymers and through mechanical forces.
Now - Since 2018 I am leading a highly motivated and young research team that aims at the discovery of exciting properties from emitting layered structures for non-conventional applications. My team has opened different strategies for the use of layered perovskites as active materials in applications where stress sensing or light modulation is desired. I am also actively collaborating on Artificial Intelligence and Data Management (DM) for Colloidal Quantum Dot Materials Research ( AI-4-QD project), which allowed me to gain a strong expertise on data structure and DM.
In 2021 our team work was highlighted by Nature News and part of the collection Celebrating Excellent of Women in Materials Science from Advanced Materials!
If you want to know more about our activities visit our website HERE!
