Sensory Polymers From Their Design to Practical Applications

Dr. José Miguel García Pérez is founder and leader of the Polymer Group at the University of Burgos (UBU), aimed at the design, development and study of new polymeric materials with high added value for their application in advanced technologies.

He is Vice-Rector for Research and Knowledge Transfer at the UBU, Vice-President of the Loop Consortium of the Universities of Castilla y León, and member of the Governing Council of the CENIEH Singular Scientific-Technical Facility (MINECO).

Saúl Vallejos obtained his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Burgos. While working on his doctoral thesis, he founded the company "Chameleon Sensors SL". This helped him get to know the industrial and commercial world closely, but mainly directed his research and the group towards real solutions for the real world. He worked at the European Space Agency (ESA, Noordwijk, Holland) and at the Miguel Hernández University (Elche, Spain) which helped him make more and better contributions in the field of polymers.

He is co-director of the Polymer Research Group of the University of Burgos. He is the principal investigator of 3 funded research projects (funded with more than €100k) and has registered 18 patents in the last eight years.

Miriam Trigo López started her Master’s in Education along with her PhD studies in Advanced Chemistry in the Polymer Research Group under the supervision of Professor José Miguel García Pérez and Dr. Félix C. García García in 2010. In 2012, she obtained a Research Personnel Formation Grant by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and another one on mobility by the same organization in 2014, to complete a stay in in the Materials Research Laboratory of the University of Santa Barbara, USA. She finished her PhD in December 2015. Her thesis about functional polymers and their applications as sensors and high-performance materials was awarded with the International Mention, Extraordinary Doctorate Award (2017) at the University of Burgos, the second award in the Best National Thesis about Polymers by the Spanish Royal Societies of Physics and Chemistry (RSEQ and RSEF) (2015), and with the award “Doctor TCUE” in 2015 for thesis with industrial applications.

Recently, she obtained a funding from the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science (145.200 €) to lead her own research about the improvement of aromatic polyamides.