Patricia Sánchez-Blázquez

I obtained my PhD in 2004 from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), receiving both the Extraordinary Doctorate Award and the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) award for Best Thesis of the 2004–2005 biennium. I subsequently held postdoctoral positions in Australia (Swinburne), Switzerland (EPFL), Spain (IAC), and the United Kingdom, the latter funded through a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (FP6). In 2011, I returned to Madrid (UAM) with a Ramón y Cajal contract, and since 2019 I have been an Associate Professor (Profesor Titular de Universidad, PTU) at UCM, with accreditation for Full Professor.

My PhD research focused on the stellar populations of early-type galaxies across different environments, revealing significant differences in star-formation timescales between field and cluster galaxies—particularly at low masses. I also developed the MILES stellar library, which remains one of the most widely used libraries for constructing stellar population models. During my postdoctoral work in Australia and Switzerland, I studied extragalactic globular clusters and expanded my research on galaxy evolution as part of the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS). I later transitioned into the development of chemo-dynamic cosmological simulations using both grid-based and particle-based codes. I am currently the Project Scientist of CATARSIS, a legacy survey for the Calar Alto Observatory that will map galaxy clusters with the new wide-field IFU instrument TARSIS. This project aims to validate the standard cosmological model, constrain the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and advance our understanding of how galaxies co-evolve with their environments.

I have published a total of 387 articles, 217 in peer review journals, which have collectively accumulated 18,5601 citations. I have also contributed a chapter to a monograph on galactic bulges published by Springer. Five of my articles have over 500 citations, 22 have more than 200, and 48 have over 100 citations. My h-index is 67.  I have presented my work at more than 60 national and international conferences, including 21 invited or review talks. Additionally, I have given 36 seminars at national and international research institutions and have served on the Scientific Committee of 10 international conferences.  I have served as a Scientific Collaborator for the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) from January 2020 to December 2023 and as coordinator for the Astronomy and Astrophysics Area (AYA) from November 2022 to December 2023. I have participated in the panels  of the Ramon y Cajal program in 4 occasions (3 of them as a chair), and the “Generation of Knowledge research program” during 3 years (one of them as a chair), as well as other programs of the Spanish Research Agency (Instrumentation programs, evaluation of Research Excellency, R3, and others).   I have been a member of the Time Allocation Committee for the Canary Islands telescopes for six semesters (serving as deputy chair for the galaxies sub-area) and have served on the Observational Proposal Committee at ESO for 6 semester (Periods P92–P94 and P110–P111), and the Hubble Space Telescope (Cycle 27),. I have served on the  pannel of “Extragalactic Astronomy” at the and NASA’s Astrophysics Data Analysis Program for 6 year (2012–2018) and the and the NASA Postdoctoral Program (2018–2019).   I have completed 52 scientific peer reviews for D1 or Q1 journals (JCR classification) Additionally, I have acted as an external reviewer for research funding agencies in various countries (Spain, Poland, Austria, the UK, Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the European Science Foundation), as well as for regional agencies in Andalucía, Aragón, and Valencia. I coordinated the evaluation committee (Sciences area) for the Spanish university system’s 2021–2023 requalification program at the University of Seville.

I have authored and co-authored over 217 publications in refereed journals. To view a list of the articles, please see my profile in the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System

Some of the public science articles I have published can be found here:

Exoplanets: