About

Gara Villalba is a full professor of the Department of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her bachelor’s degree is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998), and her PhD from the University of Barcelona (2003), both in chemical engineering. Her research is dedicated to the study and optimization of resource metabolism from a systemic approach based on Industrial Ecology tools such as Material Flow Analysis and Life Cycle Analysis. Recent studies focus on analyzing and optimizing the food-energy-water nexus of urban systems. She was a Marie S. Curie fellow (2015-2018) at UC Merced School of Engineering, was awarded an ERC Consolidator grant entitled Integrated System Analysis of Urban Vegetation and Agriculture (2019-2025), and is a recipient of ICREA Academia (2021-2025). She teaches in the undergraduate program of Chemical Engineering, as well as the Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability (where she coordinates the specialty of Industrial Ecology), and the Master’s Degree of Biological and Environmental engineering.