Fitxa persona

María Celia García Álvarez-Coque completed her Chemistry degree at Univ. Valencia in 1976, receiving Awards in both her undergraduate and PhD studies. She also received the National End of Studies Award in Chemistry and Cañada Blanch PhD Award. In 1977‒1980, she worked at Dep. Analytical Chemistry (Univ. Valencia) with a research grant from Dirección General de Universidades, and was Assistant Professor from 1977 to 1983. In 1983, she secured a permanent Professor position after successfully passing a national competitive examination held in Madrid. She then undertook a post-doctoral stay at the Univ. Florida (Gainesville, USA) in 1986-1987, supported by Generalitat Valenciana. She was promoted to Full Professor in June 1997 and became Emeritus Professor in September 2024.

Initially focusing on spectroscopy (fluorimetry, phosphorimetry, and thermal lens spectrometry), she later specialised in liquid chromatography. In 1992, she founded the FUSCHROM group (FUndamental Studies in CHROMatography, http://www.uv.es/fuschrom). Her expertise includes modelling retention behaviour and optimisation in chromatography, separation kinetics, secondary equilibria, design of novel separation strategies, and analytical method development for pharmaceutical, clinical, and food samples.

She has taught in the Chemistry and Pharmacy degrees, as well as in several Master, Doctorate and Postgraduate programs at Univ. Valencia, and in 1995 and 1998 in an Analytical Chemistry Master at Univ. Nacional Autónoma de León (Nicaragua). Since 1995, she has led 10 national research projects, and in 2016-2019 a PROMETEO Project funded by Generalitat Valenciana. In September 2024, the FUSHCHROM group received one of the 3 Consolidated Group grants in Chemical Science and Technology in the Valencian Community, funded by Generalitat Valenciana, with José Ramón Torres as main researcher.

She has supervised 30 PhD students (3 still ongoing), with 8 receiving Doctorate Awards, and one honoured with the International Massart Award in Chemometrics 2006 by the Belgian Society on Chemometrics; 3 of her PhD. students obtained a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellowship and 3 more a Ramón y Cajal contract. Thirteen of these students have held or currently hold professorial positions in several Spanish and foreign universities, and one is senior researcher in the CSIC; 3 PhD students and 2 collaborators have been promoted to Full Professors.

She has published 313 articles (two more have been submitted), 95% in international journals with at least 50% in the first quartile of the Journal Citation Report in the field of Analytical Chemistry (almost 25% in the first decile), and other 25% in the second quartile. Her published articles include 8 in Analytical Chemistry, 94 in Journal of Chromatography A, 30 in Analytica Chimica Acta, 13 in Analyst and Microchemical Journal, 11 in Talanta, 5 in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry and Separation and Purification Reviews, 3 in Trends in Analytical Chemistry, and 2 in Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems; 27 are reviews or tutorial articles. She has also contributed to 24 book chapters (22 international), and co-authored the books Micellar Liquid Chromatography with Alain Berthod (Marcel Dekker), and Quimiometría with Guillermo Ramis (Síntesis). She frequently is invited to collaborate in international books, encyclopedias, and scientific journals.

Her contributions to editorial boards include Analytica Chimica Acta (2005-2007), Current Chromatography (2015-2020), Separation and Purification Reviews (since 2005), and Journal of Chromatography A (since 2006). Since 1980, she has presented 220 communications at 62 international symposia and 131 communications at 46 national symposia, including 39 oral presentations, 4 keynotes, and one tutorial at HPLC'2005 in Stockholm. She co-taught with José Ramón Torres a 6-hour course at HPLC'2013 in Amsterdam. Her career has garnered 6 awards and 4 finalist recognitions at symposia. She chaired the jury of the Miguel Valcárcel Awards in 2019 and 2022, granted by the Spanish Analytical Chemistry Society.

Her collaborations span diverse universities and companies, standing out particularly her work with Guillermo Ramis (Univ. Valencia), Elisabeth Bosch and Martí Rosés (Univ. Barcelona), Benjamín Monrabal (PolymerChar, Paterna, Valencia), James Winefordner (Univ. Florida), Alain Berthod (Univ. Lyon 1), Desiré Luc Massart (Vrije Univ. Brussel), Michael Abraham (Univ. College London), Peter Schoenmakers and Bob Pirok (Univ. Amsterdam), José Antonio Navarro (Novartis, Switzerland), and Sanka Atapattu (CANAM Bioreserach, Canada). She was granted with 6 consecutive six-year research periods (up to 2012) and 6 five-year teaching periods (up to 2007). In 2017, the VESTIGIUM Project (http://www.vestigium.es) ranked her among the top 100 scientists of the Valencian Community for the 21st-century.