Rita Sánchez Tovar

Biography

Rita Sánchez Tovar graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Polytechnical University of Valencia (UPV) in 2007 and obtained a Master in Industrial and Environmental Safety (UPV) in 2008. She got a Doctorate at the Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Department (UPV) in 2012, studying the galvanic corrosion of copper and stainless steel pipelines under hydrodynamic conditions, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jose García-Anton and Dr. Maria Teresa Montañés. Her Doctoral Thesis obtained the Extraordinary Doctorate Award (2013). She made three research stays (one of them predoctoral) at the Institute for Surface Science and Corrosion of the University of Erlangen-Nurenberg, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Patrik Schmuki, where she could develop new nanostructured photoelectrocatalysts, fabricated from semiconductor metallic oxides, for energetic (generation of H2 via solar water splitting) and environmental (degradation of persistent organic pollutants from wastewaters) applications.

After the Doctorate, from 2012 to 2019, she obtained several postdoctoral contracts at the Research Institute for Industrial, Radiophysical and Environmental Safety (UPV), where her research activity has focused on the development of new nanocatalysts for electrochemical and photoelectrochemical applications. From 2015 to 2019, she combined her research work being a part time instructor at the Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Department (UPV).

In September 2019 she joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Valencia (UV) as Assistant Professor (Profesora Ayudante Doctor), a position that she currently holds. In these last years, she has continued developing her research on the electrochemistry and photoelectrochemistry and she has started to characterize the electrochemical properties of nanocatalysts used for the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane in the IQCATAL research group. Currently, she is part of a research project from the Spanish Government (PID2019-105844RB-I00) and of a contract with the company Power Electronics, where she is starting to study nanostructured electrodes for Li-ion batteries.

Until now, she has published 68 articles in International Journals (63 from 2011), covering the fields of electro- and photoelectrochemistry, catalysis, materials science, chemical engineering and environmental engineering, 59 of them in JCR and 45 of them in the first quarter (Q1) of the JCR. In total, her publications have received 745 citations, with 138 citations in the last year 2021. She has an index h = 16. In the last 10 years, she has collaborated with 4 international research centers and, with all of them, research articles with high impact factor have been published. Besides, she has written five research book chapters and five complete research books. She has also presented more than 80 contributions at national and international conferences. The researcher has been PI of two competitive research projects, one funded by Iberdrola Company (2014) and the other a “Proyecto emergente” from the Generalitat Valenciana (2020-2021). She has also participated in 13 research projects funded in public calls. Concerning the transfer activities, she has participated in 7 contracts with companies (5 in the last 5 years) and she is an inventor of an international patent. All these results have been recognized with two SEXENIO by the AVAP (2008-2014 and 2015-2020).

In the last years (2019 and 2021), two of her PhD students has defended their Theses (one of them being an International PhD which obtained the Extraordinary Doctorate Award) and she is currently supervising another PhD student. She has also supervised 6 Final Master Thesis (TFM) in the last 5 years and more than 20 Final Degree Projects (TFG) in the last 8 years focused on the catalysis of nanostructured materials for electrochemical and photoelectrochemical applications.

She is also evaluator of research PhD and Postdoctoral contracts from an Andalusian Public institution (Junta de Andalucía). The researcher acts as a referee of more than 10 international journals (Elsevier, ACS, NACE, MDPI) and she is currently one of the guest Editors of the “Materials” journal (MDPI), which is currently in the Q1 of JCR.