Contact details

Dr. Ainara Saralegi
Materials + Technologies Research Group “GMT”
Department of Chemical and Environamental Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Gipuzkoa
University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
Plaza de Europa 1, 20018 Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain

Web of Science Researcher ID: FZS-9519-2022
ORCID code: 0000-0002-7583-9981
Research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ainara-Saralegi
Linkedin: https://es.linkedin.com/in/ainara-saralegi-04a6828b
Research Group: https://www.ehu.eus/en/web/gmt/ainara-saralegi

Short biography

Ainara Saralegi is Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of Gipuzkoa, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, and has over a decade of experience in the design and development of advanced polymeric materials. She earned her PhD in Renewable Materials Engineering from UPV/EHU in 2013, with an “International Thesis” mention and the UPV/EHU Extraordinary Doctorate Award. During her doctoral studies (2010-2013) she completed a three-month research stay at the Adolphe Merkle Institute (Fribourg, Switzerland) under Drs. Christoph Weder and Johan Foster. In 2014 she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal) under Dr. Filomena Barreiro, and, thanks to a Basque Government postdoctoral fellowship, she worked in the Advanced Materials Group at Virginia Tech University (USA) from 2015 to 2016 under the direction of Dr. Johan Foster. In 2017 she served as Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Organic Chemistry II at UPV/EHU, and in 2018 she was Research Technologist at Tecnalia Research & Innovation.

She has contributed to more than 15 regional, national and European research projects—three as Principal Investigator—and has presented her work at over 40 international conferences. Dr. Saralegi has authored 26 ISI-indexed journal articles (Hirsch factor = 18; more than 1000 citations) and one book chapter. Her research focuses on the design, synthesis and structure–property relationships of novel polymer systems, especially bionanocomposites, smart materials and polymers derived from renewable or recyclable resources

List of selected ongoing projects

• “Electrohilado de nuevos bioNIPUs clicables para el desarrollo de plataformas de nanofibras funcionales”.
  MCIU, Proyectos de Investigación orientada de la convocatoria 2022, en el marco del Programa Estatal para Impulsar la Investigación Científico-Técnica y su Transferencia, del Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica, Técnica y de Innovación 2021-2023. Referencia: PID2022-140119OB-I00.
  Researcher
  Duration: 01-09-2023/31-08-2026

• “Desarrollo de adhesivos biobasados termoreversibles para promover la circularidad en la industria de materiales (BIOREVERT)”.
  Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa RED I+D Proyectos 2024. Referencia: 2024-CIE4-000012-01.
  Principal researcher
  Duration: 05-06-2024/30-09-2025

• “Development and optimization of lignin-based multi-action carrier platform for bioactive compound encapsulation (LignOcap)”.
  Ayudas a proyectos de investigación UPV/EHU (2024). Referencia: EHU-N24/07.
  Researcher
  Duration: 01-01-2025/31-12-2026