Arriortua Marcaida, Mª Isabel

María Isabel Arriortua Marcaida (1950, Barakaldo) is professor of Crystallography and Mineralogy at the University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, where she is professor and doctor of Chemistry. She conducted part of her doctoral thesis at the University of Lovaine-la-Neuve (Belgium).

She has created a research group (ImaCris/MaKrisI) to supervise projects and theses, which has become a major scientific facility, published over 270 articles in specialist journals and participated in over 400 national and international conferences. She has a value of 36 on Hirsch's h-index.

Her lines of research focus on finding alternatives to fossil fuels. Moreover, she researches porous materials based on suitable self-assembling structural building units.

Professor Arriortua heads the X-ray Diffraction Facility at the UPV/EHU Geology Department's Faculty of Science and Technology; is director of General Research Services (SGIker-UPV/EHU); member of the International Union of Crystallography; vice-president of the Specialized Group on Crystallography and Crystalline Growth;  reviewer for international journals on chemistry and crystallography, and coordinator in the Areas of Science and Technology for the National Evaluation and Foresight Agency (ANEP). She sits on the panel of experts designing the Basque Government's Science, Technology and Innovation Plan, and the Euskampus Project Coordination Committee, Campus of International Excellence.

She has been involved in national and international research assessment commissions and several national agencies: CNEAI[1], UNIQUAL[2], ANECA[3], CAECA[4] and AGAUR[5] and has sat on the Panel of Judges for the Enrique Moles Award.

María Isabel Arriortua won the 2001 Euskadi Science and Technology Research Award.