About me
M. Laura Soriano is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Córdoba. She obtained Ph.D. degree in Chemistry at Castilla La-Mancha University (UCLM) 2007. Her Doctoral Thesis (funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology) focuses on supramolecular chemistry and anion receptors. She was awarded a PhD degree in Chemistry with the highest distinction (Summa Cum Laude), which was accomplished with two short stays of three and two months in the prestigious universities of Oxford (U.K.) with Dr. Tim Claridge, and Vienna (Austria) with Prof. Walter Weissensteiner.
She was a postdoctoral fellow at Durham University (U.K.), working with Prof. Jonathan Steed on the synthesis and anion binding of thiourea complexes (2007-2009). Afterwards, she moved to Italy, working in the Pharmaceutical Department with Prof. Maurizio Prato (Trieste, 2009-2011) funded by a FP7-EU project (CARBONANOBRIDGE) and the Synchrotron (an Italian regional project FVG AMBIONSEN) in the development of new types of fluorescent nanoprobes.
In 2012, she joined the FQM-215 research group at University of Cordoba funded by a FP7-EU project (INSTANT) working on the development of new methods based on nanotechnology for analytical and pharmaceutical purposes. One of her current research lines lies on characterization and separation of a variety of nanostructures from complex matrices. Thus, she worked with sorbents and fluorescent sensing probes based on nanoparticles (its format made of “crystalline solids”, “liquids” and “gels”), particularly with nanocellulose, carbon nanodots and graphene quantum dots. For 3 years she worked with Prof. Ángel Ríos at UCLM in a project awarded by the European Commission devoted to Graphene Nanomaterials, in which she was IP. There she was leading her independent research line at UCLM with an excellent programme called “Retorno y Retención del Talento”. She developed diverse graphene derivatives for applications in areas related to the environment protection, food, and pharmaceutical analyses. Additionally, she worked with the Lecturer M. Victoria Gómez and Prof. Aldrik Velders regarding encapsulation of drugs into fibres formed in microfluidics and applied to photo-CIDNP in microcoils. In 2021, she returned to FQM-215 group as Assistant Professor in the Analytical department to continue her research in nanoencapsulation based on non-toxic fibres and nanoparticles for a wide range of applications including catalysis.
Up to date, she has published more than 50 publications, including one book and several book chapters. She has supervised two Doctoral Thesis with European/international Mentions. She has been collaborating with several groups of Europe, Israel, and Iran. She participated in several research and innovative teaching projects. She has been invited to give several seminars and oral presentations along Europe. Also, Dr. Soriano has also participated in divulgation activities (e.g. “Paseo por la Ciencia”, e-book, seminars) for teaching different aspects of “Nanoscience and Nanotechnology” to public community and introductory students.