Macarena Munoz is Associate Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She is an environmental scientist with a PhD in Chemical Engineering. Her research lines are focused on the advancement of innovative technologies for water treatment (mainly advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and catalytic hydrodehalogenation), where she has significantly contributed to the state-of-the-art. In 2018, she started a new research line dealing with the elimination of microplastics from water. Remarkably, she developed a highly-effective, environmentally-friendly and technically-feasible procedure for the separation of microplastics from water, which was patented. Related to this achievement, she launched, as founding partner, a spin-off focused on the removal of microplastics from water in 2020 (CAPTOPLASTIC). Along her research career, she completed several internships in Germany (CUTEC Institute) and Portugal (Aveiro University), and hold a postdoctoral position at Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2014-2015, Germany). Her scientific production encompasses 68 papers in JCR journals (85% Q1 journals) and more than 100 contributions to scientific conferences. Macarena has participated in 15 competitive research projects, 4 of them as PI. She works as project evaluator, and has been part of several evaluation panels, for different institutions (AEI (Spain); National Agency of Argentina; Israel Science Foundation; Poland National Science Center). Regarding knowledge transfer, she is the first author of 4 National and 4 EU patents (6 of them licensed and under exploitation by CAPTOPLASTIC). She acted as PI of 5 contracts with companies (CAPTOPLASTIC and AQUALIA). Macarena is deeply committed to sharing scientific knowledge with the general society. Her active involvement in events like the European Researchers' Night and the International Day of Women and Girls in Science showcases her dedication to making science accessible to diverse audiences.
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