I am member of the research group in
Molecular Microbial Ecology (UdG-GRCT002) since 2005 and a member of the
ECOAQUA 2017SGR-548 research group recognized by the Generalitat de Catalunya,
at the Institute of Aquatic Ecology of the University of Girona. My research
has focused on the field of microbial ecology, the study of the diversity and
activity of prokaryotes and the development of new cultivation techniques. I
did my PhD at the University of Girona (1997-2000) in the study of
photosynthetic bacteria, their isolation, physiological study and the
development of molecular tools for their characterization. I obtained a
postdoctoral contract (2001-2005) from the German Government to work on the cultivation
of previously uncultivated prokaryotes from natural environments in the group
of Professor Jörg Overmann at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Munich). In
2005, I obtained a scholarship to recruit doctors from the C-RED Program of
the Generalitat de Catalunya to return to the University of Girona. There I
worked on several projects focused on the diversity and activity of mesophilic
archaea involved in the carbon cycle, focusing both on the application of new
cultivation techniques and on the optimization of techniques to quantify their
abundances in natural environments. In parallel, between 2011 and 2021, I
collaborated with the Laboratory of Environmental and Chemical Engineering
(LEQUIA) to study the microbial processes related to the nitrogen cycle in
biological reactors for the elimination of nutrients in wastewater. The
experience developed in the study of the nitrogen cycle allowed me to address
environmental problems related to human activity that culminated in the
co-direction together with Dr. Lluís Bañeras Vives of the same research group
of a doctoral thesis, which was defended in 2019 (Origin and fate of nitrite in
model ecosystems: casi studies in groundwater and constructed wetlands). This
experience allowed me to collaborate with Dr. Helena Guasch Padró of the
Institute of Aquatic Ecology, in which I contributed my experience for the
study of microbial communities in epilitic biofilms of rivers affected by
different anthropic impacts, mainly by urban pollution and metals. This collaboration
was specified in the co-direction of a doctoral thesis presented in 2020
(Microbial communities responses in fluvial biofilms under metal stressed
scenarios). In 2014 I joined a multidisciplinary research project with LEQUIA
called BiogasApp (2014-2017) focused on the combination of biological and
chemical approaches for the elimination of emerging pollutants in biogas such
as siloxanes. This project allowed me to demonstrate my skills in the isolation
and characterization of bacterial strains with the ability to degrade multiple
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as siloxanes, toluene, hexane, limonene
in order to select promising bacterial isolates to combine them in biotrickling filter reactors for the elimination of VOCs from biogas. In this context I
participated in the co-direction together with Dr. Lluís Bañeras Vives and Dr.
Alba Cabrera Codony of the doctoral thesis defended in 2020 (Towards the
implementation of a biotechnology for biogas upgrading: role of bacteria in
siloxane removal), where it was possible to isolate in the laboratory strains
of bacteria with capacity for the metabolization of siloxanes and their use in
gas biotrickling filters to increase the efficiencies of siloxane elimination in
gas flows simulating the biogas of urban wastewater treatment plants. I am currently a member of
the research team of the CARINSAL project (The carbon-microbiome coupling in
inland saline waters under climate crisis, PID2021-123735OB-C21) where I study
microbial communities at the level of diversity and function in relation to the
nitrogen cycle in lagoons with different degree of salinity and water
availability.
The teaching activity has been carried out
between 2005 and up to now at the Microbiology Area in the
Department of Biology. The teaching given in the degrees of the Faculty of
Sciences includes the subjects of Environmental Microbiology and Toxicology
(Environmental Sciences Degree), Projects (Biology Degree), General
Microbiology Practices (Biology Degree), General Microbiology (Biology Degree),
Practice course in Fundamental Biology (Biology Degree), Food Hygiene (Food
Science and Technology). I have also taught in the Masters in the Faculty of
Sciences, specifically in the Master in Science and Technology of Water
Resources (subjects of Water and Innovation, Water Treatment Systems and Water
Uses), and in the Master of Molecular Biology and Biomedicine (Molecular
Techniques for the Study of Microorganisms).