Dr. Villa obtained her bachelor’s in Chemistry from Universidad del Quindío (Colombia) before moving to Spain to pursue her scientific career. Here, she received her Master’s in Science and Chemical Technology from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where she also developed her PhD thesis working on “Hydrogen generation from biomass by heterogeneous photocatalysis.” After obtaining her PhD, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC), the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and as Senior Scientist at the University of Chemistry and Technology (Czech Republic) in the fields of solar fuels and self-propelled micromotors.

Since June 2021, she is Principal Investigator of a project on the conversion of carbon dioxide into high-value chemicals and fuels at ICIQ, thanks to a la Caixa Junior Leader fellowship. Throughout her scientific career, she has worked in 8 research centers in three different countries: Colombia, Spain, the Czech Republic and Belgium. Over the last two years, she has been successful in highly competitive grants, including an MSCA-COFUND-University of Padova, Beatriu de Pinós, la Caixa Junior Leader, Ramón y Cajal and ERC-StG.

Her research interests include photocatalysis, nanomaterials, renewable energy, micro/nanomotors, and environmental remediation.