María Villanueva López is an Associate Professor in the Applied Physics Department at the University of Santiago de Compostela. She completed her PhD studies at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2002. She has worked on different topics, including the design and/or characterization of materials (epoxy and ionic liquids -ILs-), energy assessment of urban and forest waste, microcalorimetric study of soil microbial growth, and the toxicity of LI, all of which have given rise to the publication of more than 60 papers in JCR journals, several book chapters, and more than 80 contributions to conferences and congress, as well as her participation as a researcher in numerous research projects. She has supervised two doctoral theses in the last 10 years. She is now a researcher at iMATUS, and her research interests include ionic liquids, calorimetry, rheology, electrochemical systems, energy storage and sustainable materials. Her teaching disciplines include Fundamental Physics and Calorimetry and Thermodynamics, and she is also focused on the Physics Olympiad, as she is the main person responsible for this event at the University of Santiago de Compostela.