Arantxa Eceiza
(Full Professor)
Web address
Biography
Arantxa Eceiza is currently Full Professor of the Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department of the Basque Country University (UPV/EHU) at the Polytechnic School of Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain. She graduated in Chemistry from the UPV/EHU and received her PhD degree in Chemistry from the same University, working in polyurethanes synthesis and analyzing their structure-properties relationships, under the supervision of Prof. Iñaki Mondragon. She is since 1991, member of the `Materials + Technologies´ Research Group, founded by Prof I. Mondragon in 1987. Her teaching activity focuses mainly with Chemistry and Materials Science in Engineering Degrees (School of Engineering of Gipuzkoa) and Biomaterials and Biocomposites in post-graduate masters. She is member of the Academic Committee of the Master in Renewable Materials Engineering and responsible of the Renewable Materials Engineering PhD Program of the UPV/EHU, which has been recognized by the Spanish Ministry of Education as a highly-qualified Ph.D. program (Mención de Calidad (MCD2008-00126) y hacia la excelencia (MEE2011-0372)). She is the head of `Materials + Technologies´ (GMT) Research Group, recognized as Consolidated Research Group by the Basque Government (IT-776-13). Currently, 20 Assistants and Associate Professors, 1 Permanent Senior Researcher and 1 SGIkER (UPV/EHU) technician as well as over 40 post-doctoral fellows and PhD students are involved in the research conducted in GMT. The main research lines of the group are Composites (thermoplastics and thermosets matrices with different fibres), Biomaterials (matrices derived from renewable sources, biopolymers and their composites) and Nanomaterials (synthesis and functionalization of inorganic, magnetic and metallic nanoparticles, nanoclays, carbon nanostructures and nanoentities of chitin and cellulose, nanostructured materials, polymer brushes, etc.)
Research
Her research interest is focused mainly on polyurethanes (thermoplastic, thermoset, rigid-flexible foams, waterborne) and polymeric matrices based on renewable materials (starch, gelatins, hemicelluloses, polymeric precursors) and their nanocomposites with cellulose nanofibres and nanocrystals, bacterial cellulose, chitin nanocrystals, inorganic and metallic nanoparticles and carbon nanostructures, and also polymer brushes and other functional materials. She has participated in more than 60 research projects funded by Basque Government, University of the Basque Country, Council of Gipuzkoa, Government of Spain (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), European Commission, and also industrially funded projects, being the supervisor in 30 of them. Publications She has published more than 135 articles in high impact international journals, co-authored four book chapters, participated in more than 100 conferences and poster presentations in international Congresses. She is also co-author of 3 patents. She has been also member of Scientific and Organizing Committees of international Congresses. Furthermore, she has supervised 11 PhD theses, 7 of them with International Mention.