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(2019 to present) Assistant professor at the department of Geology and Geochemistry, Soil sciences section, Autonomous University of Madrid. Our research group is focus on remediation of soil and wastewater affected by organic contaminants such as antibiotics and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and heavy metals. Our main remediation techniques include adsorption on clays and organic amendments and bioremediation techniques such as biodegradation by ligninolytic fungi and enzymes or phytoremediation.

(2017 - 2018) Postdoc possition (Juan de la Cierva - Formación) at the Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Salamanca (IRNASA) at the Spanish National Research Council. The main objective of our reseach group (Soil and water contamination: Diagnosis, prevention and/or remediation) is the knowledge in depth of the processes and factors involved in the dynamics of inorganic and organic contaminats in soil, which is essential to apply rational prevention or remediation techniques for contamination of soil and water. Our studies will contribute to the development of new or improved environmental technologies to reduce the environmental impact of the human activities, protect the environment and manage the resources more efficiently to mantein the sustainablility of the agricultural systems.

We worked on dynamic of herbicides on soils and soils amended with organic wastes. We carried out assays at laboratory and field scale. The main objectives were to determine the availability, leaching and dissipation of herbicides and the impact of these chemicals on soil microbial structure.

My past lines of research (2009 – 2017) were developed at the department of Agricultural Chemistry and Food Sciences at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). We developed a biofilter able to adsorb tetracyclines on clay and biochar and simultaneously degrade the antibiotics by ligninolytic enzymes of fungi, previously immobilized on clay or biochar, respectively. We assessed the usefulness of spent mushroom substrate to remediate contaminated soils with heavy metals and/or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). We determined the ability of spent mushroom substrate and its raw materials to adsorb and immobilize heavy metals. The compost produced with spent mushroom substrate was assayed in combination with Atriplex halimus to phytoremediate mine soils. The ability of spent mushroom substrate to degrade PAH was assessed in my Ph.D. thesis.

My PhD thesis (UAM, 2015) was about the bioremediation of contaminated soils with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by using spent mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) substrate (SAS). I focused the research on the most effective method of application of SAS and the benefits on the reduction of the soil toxicity. To these aims, I assessed three methods of application of SAS, without treatment (bioaugmentation strategy by A. bisporus and the inherent microbiology of the SAS), after sterilization to biostimulate the autochthonous soil microbiology and finally after sterilization and re-inoculation of A. bisporus. The last one bioaugmentation approach was designed to assess the activity of A. bisporus to degrade PAH and the usefulness of spent mushroom substrate to be use as fungal carrier. To increase my training and other new approaches about soil remediation with ligninolytic fungi, I carried out a two research mobility at the University of Tuscia (Viterbo, Italy) in the Dipartimento per l’Innovazione dei sistemi biologici, agroalimentari e forestali (DIBAF) under the supervision of Prof. Maurizio Petruccioli and Dr. Alessandro D’Annibale. These researches were financed by the UAM mobility program.

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