María V. Morales has been a Tenured Lecturer in Chemical Engineering since 2024 and is a Senior Researcher under the "Ramón y Cajal" Excellence Program at UNED (Spain). She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry (UNED, 2017, extraordinary doctorate award and international mention), a master’s degree in Chemical Science and Technology (UNED, 2012), and a Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Chemistry (UPM, 2009). After a brief period in industry, Dr. Morales began her research career in 2012 through the Spanish Society of Catalysis (SECAT) fellowships, followed by a competitive FPI-UNED grant for her doctoral studies, which included a research stay at the University of Porto (Portugal). Post-Ph.D., she held positions at UNED, CEMHTI-CNRS (France) as part of an ERC-funded project, and ICP-CSIC (Spain) through a "Juan de la Cierva" fellowship. Her research focuses on heterogeneous catalysis and reactor design, with a particular emphasis on the development of non-noble metal nanoparticles supported on nanostructured carbon materials for catalytic applications. Currently, she is particularly interested in hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis of biomass-derived molecules to synthesize high-value-added compounds and biofuels. Dr. Morales has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles in Q1 journals and has supervised three Ph.D. theses (one completed and two ongoing). She is a member of SECAT.