Cristina Santamaría (CS) is currently an Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Alcalá. She received her first degree (BSc. in Chemistry) at the University of Alcalá in 1994. In her Ph.D. studies at the University of Alcalá, under the direction of Dr. Miguel Mena, focused her research on titanium organometallic oxides. With these investigations, CS made many important contributions to the synthesis and structural characterization of trimetallic oxo species and provided CS with high skills towards organometallic synthesis and characterization. Throughout the Ph.D. studies, CS was awarded an F.P.U. fellowship by the Spanish Research Council. CS has the chance of widening her chemistry knowledge and gain international experience, and she moves to the University of Oldenburg as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow in the group of Prof. Rüdiger Beckhaus.

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After a postdoctoral period, CS returned to Alcala, as a Lecturer in 2001, Senior Lecturer in 2003, and Associate Professor in 2009. This position allows her to combine her passion for research with role teaching and mentoring people. In specific, CS has supervised 3 Doctoral Thesis, 5 Final Degree Projects, 4 Final Master Projects, and CS is currently supervising the predoctoral studies of 5 graduate students. Since 2001, her research focuses on small molecules (H2, N2…) activation processes by -transition metal complexes of groups 4 and 5. To date, CS has published over 35 peer-reviewed papers in the area and presented over 40 contributions, in both international and national congresses. Her investigation has been supported (21 research projects) by local, regional, and national funding, and in several of them as Principal Investigator of the research team.

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Since 2017, CS has been enthusiastically participating as an expert evaluator in the scholarship selection committee for the “DAAD-Research Grants - One Year Grants” and “DAAD-Study Scholarships for Graduate of All Disciplines” in the Goethe-Institut (Madrid). In addition, she has been a member of the Organizing Committee of the 24th Conference on Organometallic Chemistry (EuCOMC XXIV Conference) held at the University of Alcalá (September 1st -3rd of 2021).