Susana De Matos Fernandes

Responsabilités

• Initiator, Promoter and Coordinator of the Chaire d’Excellence Partenarial E2S UPPA – MANTA

• Ongoing : Guest Editor for Polymers

• Scientific project coordinator (ANR, France & FORMAS, Sweden)

• PhD & master students supervisor and Post-doc advisor (UPV/EHU, Spain; UPPA, France and UU, Sweden)

• Since 2015: PhD dissertations examinator (Opponent and Examination Committee Member)

• 2016: Guest Editor for Materials

• Since 2014: Member of the International Scientific Committee of BiPoCo - International Conference on Bio-based Polymers and Composites

• Member of the Evaluation Committee for the Best Poster Prize of  BiPoCo

• Since 2013: Regular evaluator of scientific papers for major international journals

Compétences

• Development of ‘green’ and sustainable methodologies for the extraction of biopolymers and biomolecules (isolation & purification)

• Physico-chemical, mechanical & thermomechanical characterization of bio-based raw materials and processed materials including (nano)composites

• Chemistry of biopolymers (namely chitin, chitosan, cellulose, starch, pullulan and collagen)

• Mimic the bioactivity of living organisms to provide new functionalities to materials - often via chemical modification by crosslinking & grafting and processing of biomacromolecular-based systems, essentially carbohydrate-based and proteins (for instance barrier properties)

• Sustainable nanochitin and nanocellulose biocomposites, by desinging and processing films, nanoparticles, 3D pouros structures and hydrogels for biomedical, food and food packaging applications

•  Biosynthesis of bacterial cellulose-based materials (membranes, particles and fibers) for biomedical applications

Thèmes de recherche

• Valorization of marine resources and by-products

• Blue and red biotechnologies conjugation, by aiming the development of marine-based biomaterials for regenerative, preventive and therapeutic medicine (i.e. cartilage tissue engineering)

• Biomimetic approaches in tissue engineering and functional materials to improve cell culture efficiency and cell behavior

• Development of sustainable (bio)materials and bio(nano)composites with low impact on aquatic environment

• Study of the hierarchical structure and bioactivity of materials synthetized by marine organisms

Sciences Ouvertes, UPPA's Scientific Research podcast :

Encadrement

• Co- or Supervior of 3 PhD Students (2012-2015, Spain; 2017-2021, Spain ; 2018-2021, France)

• Supervisor of 2 Master Students (2011, Sapin; 2012, Spain ; 2019, France)

• Research Advisor of 3 Postdoctoral Researchers (2015-2017, Spain ; 2017-2018, France ; 2018-2020, Sweden)

• Academic & Research Advisor of 1 undergraduate student (2017)

• Host of visiting students : 2 PhD students (2014 at EHU/UPV, Spain; 2015 & 2016 at KTH, Sweden, 2017 at IPREM-UPPA, France) and 1 master  (2017 at IPREM-UPPA, France)

• Research Mentor of 7 PhD Students and 1 Postdoctoral Researcher (since 2011 in Spain, Sweden and France)

Projets

I have been able to build research projects and attract funding to develop my own research as PI or Coordinator obtained from international and national bodies (Portugal, Sweden, France and Spain). Also, I have participated in the proposal preparation and research teams of 7 R&D projects, including 2 European projects (FP7) and 5 national granted projects. As supervisor or as co-supervisor I have been awarded 2 PhD and 1 PhD visiting scholarships.

On going projects

Publications