Miren López de Alda Villaizán

Miren López de Alda Villaizán is PhD in Pharmacy by the University of Santiago de Compostela and currently works as Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA) that is part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Previous to this, she worked for three years as a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Maryland, USA. Her main field of expertise is the environmental analysis of emerging contaminants by target and non-target LC-MS/(HR)MS-based techniques, field where she has published the first multi-residue analytical methods and environmental data reported worldwide for numerous environmental contaminants like estrogens, illicit drugs, and cytostatics.

Miren López de Alda has participated in 24 national and 26 international I+D projects financed in public calls, being principal investigator (PI) or co-PI in 10 and 10 of them, respectively, and in 59 contracts with companies and/or administrations (43 as IP or co-IP). She has published 228 SCI papers (Hirsch-index 84, > 20.000 citations), 4 books, 4 special issues, and 33 book chapters, and has presented more than 350 contributions in national and international conferences. She is has been included in the list of the most relevant Spanish female researchers within the category of environmental sciences (with a Fh of 1.22). In 2019 and 2025, she was nominated for the King Jaume I Award for Environmental Protection. Since 2002 she has participated as expert in numerous European (Marie Curie, STREP, EURAMET, twinning, IMI, EPA) and Spanish Committees (ANEP, AENOR, AGAUR, AEI, etc.) and has been member of various scientific and organizing committees of international conferences. She is also member of various national and international societies (SECYTA, SEEM, SEE, SESA), nets (ESAR-NET, The Water Network, NORMAN Network), and scientific journal editorial boards (e.g., J. of Applied Sciences, Methods & Protocols, Water, International Advisory Board of Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry). She has supervised 10 doctoral Thesis plus 20 DEA, TFG and Masters. Her investigations on emerging contaminants (especially those related to the study of estrogenic compounds and drugs of abuse) have appeared in numerous occasions in the public media (press, radio, TV). Internet entries for “miren lopez de alda” related to her work have reached around 95.000. Since 2014, she leads the consolidated research group “Water, Environmental and Food Chemistry Unit” (“2021 SGR 00753”). Mid-to-long term scientific–technical interests and objectives of her research agenda focus on (i) the study of environmental pollutants and their transformation products, which includes their identification, analysis, investigation of their origin, impact on the environment and human health, and ways to eliminate them, (ii) the analysis of wastewater for epidemiological and reuse purposes, and (iii) the pollution of the atmosphere, oceans and polar regions as cross-cutting areas of study and application.