Biography

Prof. García-Iriepa earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2011 (graduating with a final note of 9.94/10) and her master’s in fine chemistry in 2012 (9.90/10), both at the University of Alcalá. She later completed her doctoral studies in 2016 through a joint program between the University of Alcalá and the University of La Rioja, receiving the highest distinction, cum laude with international mention. During the Ph.D. project, she focused on combined computational and experimental studies of photochemistry and photophysics of organic chromophores.

On the experimental side, she gained extensive knowledge in various techniques, including organic synthesis and characterization, photochemical reactions, photochemical characterization through absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, as well as femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy (thanks to short research stays at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the Institut de physique et chimie des matériaux in Strasbourg). On the computational side, she developed expertise in assessing the feasibility of photochemical pathways, simulating photophysical properties, and modeling photochemical behaviors in complex systems such as biological environments.

After completing her Ph.D., Prof. García Iriepa pursued a two-year postdoctoral stay at Université Marne-La-Vallée (now Université Gustave Eiffel) in Paris. During this period, she clarified key bioluminescent aspects of the enzymatic interaction between luciferin and luciferase, further expanding her computational knowledge of photochemical processes in biological systems.

In 2019 she returned to Spain with a national Juan de la Cierva fellowship at the University of La Rioja where she deepened her research on photoactive molecular switches. Later that same year, she joined the University of Alcalá, first with a university postdoctoral contract and then as assistant professor in October 2019. She was finally promoted to associate professor in August 2023.

During this step Prof. García Iriepa actively participated in the simulation of the (photo)dynamic properties of double-helical DNA and she also carried out extensive simulations on the ground-state interactions between COVID-19 targets (including nucleic acids) and potential drug candidates. Currently, her main research focuses on non-canonical DNA structures, analyzing their molecular interactions with ligands, the modulation of the ligands’ photophysical properties upon interaction, and photochemical reactions within these DNA structures.

Additionally, over the past year, she has been involved in both experimental and computational studies on the photophysical behavior of metal complexes designed for photodynamic therapy.