Leire Kortazar Oliver

Leire Kortazar Oliver

PhD Researcher

PhD in Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
Faculty of Science and Technology

Leire Kortazar Oliver obtained her degree in Chemistry in 2011 and after a Master's degree in Environmental Pollution and Toxicology (2012). Her Doctoral Thesis, defended on the 9th of March of 2018, and carried out in the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the UPV/EHU, entitled "Development and Implementation of New Analytical Methodologies for the Study of Acidification in Estuaries", has a Cum Laude mention and category of International Doctorate.

The main objective of the thesis was to study and implement adequate ways to treat the potentiometric data for the exact determination of alkalinity in estuarine samples with variable salinities. The researcher has carried out various predoctoral stays: at the National Oceanographic Centre of Southampton (United Kingdom, 10/07/2014 - 11/08/2014), at the University of Messina (Italy, 01/10/2015 – 06/11/2015) and at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel (Germany, 02/02/2016 – 29/07/2016).

After obtaining the doctoral degree, the researcher has been working un the IBeA research group as a postdoctoral researcher. She obtained a postdoctoral fellowship for the specialisation of doctoral research staff at the UPV / EHU granted by the UPV / EHU with which she worked for two years. In the last two years she’s also been working a teacher in the same department. In all her years as a postdoctoral researcher, apart from continuing working with acidification in natural waters, her research interests have moved towards the development of analytical methods, mostly injection analysis methods, the use of chemometrics for data analysis, and microplastic pollution in sediments and beaches. She also supervised several bachelor’s thesis and master’s thesis.