Dr. Laura Torrent obtained her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Girona (UdG) in 2019. After the PhD dissertation, she was an associate lecturer at the same university, teaching analytical chemistry laboratory sessions at Bachelor’s and Master’s level. In August 2020, she joined the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) as a postdoctoral researcher. Currently, Dr. Laura Torrent is a postdoctoral researcher in the Analytical and Environmental Chemistry research group of the Chemistry Department of the UdG carrying out research and teaching tasks in analytical chemistry.
Her research focuses mainly on the development and application of analytical methodologies for the determination of trace and nanoparticulate pollutants in order to evaluate their behavior and impact on the environment, environmental technologies and bioenergetic technologies. Dr. Laura Torrent has experience in sample preparation methods and the use of techniques based on X-ray fluorescence, inductively coupled plasma and gas chromatography for environmental, biological and bioenergetic samples. Dr. Laura Torrent is co-author of 14 articles in international journals that have received more than 180 citations with an h-index of 8 (Scopus database). She is also co-author of 4 articles not included in the SCI, 1 technical report and 1 patent. She has disseminated her research activity at national and international conferences (3 invited talks, 5 oral presentations and 6 posters).
Dr. Laura Torrent has participated in 2 national projects and 1 international project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). She has also collaborated with two start-ups for the development and application of analytical methods (REMRETech and Lumekko). It is worth to mention that she has been member of the organizing committee of the "18th international conference on total reflection X-ray fluorescence analysis and related methods" (25-28/06/2019, Girona, Spain), she has been "chair" of the session of Analytical Spectroscopy at the international conference of Analytical Chemistry (Euroanalysis 2023) and she has collaborated with the European Association of X-ray Spectrometry as evaluation committee in the awarding of international prizes. She has also served as reviewer in international journals such as Environmental Science & Technology or Nanoscale Advances.
Finally, Dr. Laura Torrent received national and international recognition for her research in the field of Analytical Chemistry: best oral communication in the session of the "Environment and Human Health" Symposium at the X Trobada de Joves Investigadors dels Països Catalans (2018) by the Catalan Society of Chemistry, Extraordinary PhD Award in Chemistry (2019) by the UdG and Young Researcher Award (PhD) in X-ray Spectrometry (2022) by the European Association of X-ray Spectrometry.