Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer

Professor M. Mercedes Maroto-Valer is the director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions at Heriot-Watt University. She is the first Robert Buchan Chair in Sustainable Energy Engineering at Heriot-Watt University. This is a joint appointment between the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences and the Institute of Petroleum Engineering. At Heriot-Watt she is the Head of the Institute for Mechanical, Processing and Energy Engineering (School of Engineering and Physical Sciences) and leads the pan-University Energy Academy. She is a member of the Directorate of the Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS).

Her outstanding contributions, publication record and service to the chemical sciences and energy engineering have been recognised with numerous international prizes and awards, including 2013 Hong Kong University William Mong Distinguished Lecture, 2011 RSC Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division Early Career Award, 2009 Philip Leverhulme Prize, 2005 US Department of Energy Award for Innovative Development, 1997 Ritchie Prize, 1996 Glenn Award- Fuel Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society and the 1993 ICI Chemical & Polymers Group Andersonian Centenary Prize.

She obtained a BSc with Honours (First Class) in Applied Chemistry in 1993 and then a PhD in 1997 at the University of Strathclyde (Scotland). Following a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Applied Energy Research (CAER) at the University of Kentucky in US, she moved to the Pennsylvania State University in US, where she worked as Research Fellow and from 2001 as Assistant Professor and became Program Coordinator for Sustainable Energy. She joined the University of Nottingham as Reader in 2005 and within 3 years she was promoted to Professor in Energy Technologies. During her time at Nottingham she was the Head of the Energy and Sustainability Research Division at the Faculty of Engineering.

She has over 300 publications, including editor of 3 books, 90 refereed publications in journals and book chapters and over 200 contributions to other journals and conference proceedings. She holds leading positions in professional societies and editorial boards, including FRSC, Chair of the RSC Energy Sector, Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the RCUK Energy Programme and of the UKERC Research Committee and Editor-in-Chief of Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology.

Professor Maroto-Valer has established an international research reputation at the interface between energy and the environment. Her team is developing novel chemical and engineering solutions to meet the worldwide strive for cost-effective and environmentally-friendly energy, with particular emphasis on clean energy technologies, including carbon dioxide capture, transport, storage and utilization. She is currently coordinating an international research programme in solar fuels.