José María “Txema” Porro Azpiazu, an Ikerbasque Research Fellow and Ramón y Cajal researcher at BCMaterials, has been appointed the new president of the Spanish Society for Neutron Techniques (SETN). He succeeds María Teresa Fernández Díaz, a researcher at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France.

His appointment was announced during the SETN General Assembly, held as part of the 12th International Meeting of the Spanish Society for Neutron Techniques in Bilbao from 13 to 15 July.

BCMaterials is pleased to welcome Karolina Zofia Milowska, who joins the centre as an Ikerbasque Research Fellow and Ramón y Cajal Fellow. She holds a PhD in Physical Sciences from the University of Warsaw and has developed an outstanding international career at institutions including Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the University of Cambridge and CIC nanoGUNE.

At the end of June, BCMaterials added three new names to its list of PhD graduates in Materials Science: Juan David Cortés, James Martin, and Mahdi Gassara. They defended their doctoral theses just a few days apart. Cortés defended his thesis at the University of Alicante, while Martin and Gassara did so at the University of the Basque Country (EHU).

In recent years, scientific collaboration between BCMaterials and Chinese universities, research institutes, and companies has continued to grow through joint projects, research stays, and cooperation agreements. This strategic partnership was further strengthened in May through a two-week visit to China by BCMaterials Scientific Director Senentxu Lanceros-Méndez and Ikerbasque Research Professor Qi Zhang.

We would like to congratulate Marta García Castrillo for obtaining his PhDs in Project Engineering from the University of the Basque Country (EHU).

On May 14 she made a brilliant defense of her thesis titled “Engineering of Multifunctional Materials from Biobased Polymers for Environmentally Relevant Applications”. The thesis was coordinated by Erlantz Lizundia.

We would like to congratulate Vera Macedo for obtaining his PhDs in Materials Science and Technology from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

We would like to congratulate James Rosero for obtaining his PhDs in Materials Science and Technology from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

BCMaterials is pleased to welcome two new members to its research team: Sara Martín Iglesias, a postdoctoral researcher in the Active and Smart Materials research line, and Stefano Lunghi, a predoctoral researcher in the field of Micro and Nano-structured Materials.

Scientific staff at BCMaterials are developing next-generation nanomaterials combined with naturally sourced polymer membranes for water decontamination and reuse. These advanced materials not only remove emerging contaminants—such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria—and heavy metals, including arsenic, but also enable the recovery of high-value critical elements for industry, such as rare earth elements, cobalt, and lithium.

The new year has brought BCMaterials the arrival of three new young scientists to our staff. They are the pre-doctoral researchers Karen Cano and Mikel Russo, along with the post-doctoral researcher Jules Marcone. They will contribute from different scientific backgrounds to materials science development for areas like active and smart materials, nanostructured materials and computational materials science.

Karen Cano