Principal Investigator

Leire is Junior Leader La Caixa fellow at POLYMAT since 2025. Her research is focused on developing sustainable semicrystalline polymers and on understanding its structure-property relationship.

Dr. Leire Sangroniz Agudo earned her B.Sc. In Chemistry in 2014 and a M.Sc. in Polymer and Chemistry (specialization in Polymers) in 2015, by the University of the Basque Country. She was awarded an individual National FPU Grant from the Spanish Government to pursue her Ph.D. in Polymer Science at the University of the Basque Country and POLYMAT.

Her thesis was focused on polymer physics and structure-property relationship, especially on the areas of rheology and crystallization. She defended her thesis in September 2019 and she was awarded the Iberian award for the most distinguished PhD Thesis in Rheology (2019-2021) given by the Spanish Rheology Group and The Portuguese Society of Rheology, Extraordinary PhD Award by the University of the Basque Country and the CAF-Elhuyar Award.

In 2020 she earned a postdoctoral grant and moved to the University of Minnesota to join the Center for Sustainable Polymers. There she worked in the development of sustainable polymers focusing on the crystalline properties.

In 2023 she moved to the University of Genoa in Italy with a postdoctoral fellowship to deepen her knowledge on the relationship between polymer structure and crystallization.

In 2024 she obtained the Emakiker Grant and Gipuzkoa Fellow Grant to develop her independent research career at POLYMAT. In 2025 she got the prestigious Junior Leader grant from La Caixa foundation.