Rosa Menéndez López

Rosa Menéndez was appointed president of the Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) by agreement of the Council of Ministers on 17 November 2017. She previously held the position of vice-president for Scientific and Technical Research between 2007 and 2008 and, until her appointment, she worked as institutional coordinator of the CSIC in Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country.

In 1980 she graduated in Chemistry at the University of Oviedo, obtaining her PhD in Chemistry from the same university in 1986. In 1987 and 1988 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK). In 1988 she began her professional career at the CSIC as a tenured scientist and in 2000 she was appointed research scientist. Since 2003 she has been a research professor.

Between 2003 and 2008 she was director of the National Coal Institute (Oviedo). She has also carried out research at the School of Environmental and Mining Engineering in Nottingham (UK); the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College in London (UK); the Department of Chemical Engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina (USA); the Geology Department at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (USA); and the Northern Carbon Research Laboratories in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).

She has been Vice-President of Science Europe and, throughout her professional career, has been President of the European Carbon Association; member of the Scientific Council of the multinational SASOL; President of the Spanish Coal Group; responsible for coordinating the Materials and Energy Programme, part of the National Research, Development and Innovation Plan; member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the company Industrial Química del Nalón; member of the International Coal and Organic Petrology Committee (ICCP); member of the Technical Committee for Standardisation (AENOR); member of the Governing Council of the Principality of Asturias Health Research Institute (ICCP); member of the Scientific Council of the Principality of Asturias Health Research Institute (PICRI); member of the International Committee for Coal and Organic Petrology (ICCP); member of the Technical Committee for Standardisation (AENOR); member of the Governing Council of the Institute for Health Research of the Principality of Asturias (ISPA); member of the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI); and member of the Governing Council of the State Research Agency.

She has been actively involved in the design and evaluation of various EU activities as a member of the High-Level Group of the Governance of the European Research Area (ERA) and also as a member of the Technical and Operational Advisory Committee of the DECARBit project and of the Coal and Steel Programme Committee (RFCS). She has been chair and vice-chair of expert committees for the revision of the non-nuclear energy programme in Framework Programmes V and VI and has been evaluator of proposals submitted to different calls of the EU Framework Programmes V, VI and VII.

In recent years, in addition to her scientific interest in clean coal and oil technologies, she has initiated a new line of research into the prospects offered by graphene in biomedicine and energy storage, a subject in which she has worked with companies such as DROPSENS, Industrial Química del Nalón and the Fernández-Vega Foundation.

She has participated in more than 30 research projects with broad industrial involvement, in 23 of them as principal investigator, nine of which have been funded by the European Union under the Research and Innovation Framework Programmes and the Research Fund for Coal and Steel. She has also published more than 200 articles in high impact international scientific journals. She is the author of 10 patents and has supervised 20 doctoral theses and 22 master's theses in the fields of materials, chemistry and energy.

She has received numerous distinctions and awards, including the XIX duPont Award, in recognition of the work carried out in the study and development of new carbon materials with important industrial applications, and the Scientific Career Award of the Spanish Materials Association, granted in 2016; the XV San Alberto Magno Award for Scientific Excellence, granted by the Association of Chemists of Asturias and León and the Association of Chemists of the Principality of Asturias, and the Award for Chemical Excellence 2018, granted by the General Council of Official Associations of Chemists of Spain, both in recognition of her outstanding professional career; she also received the Silver Medal of Asturias awarded by the Principality of Asturias in 2019. Other recognitions include being named Asturian of the Month (December 2018) by La Nueva España and being the Favourite Daughter of Cudillero since 2019.