Our People
Dr Carmen Sánchez-Cañizares
Research Fellow, Research Member of Common Room
Royal Society University Research Fellow
Department of Biology
PhD (University of Maryland); MSc (Technical University of Madrid)
Carmen is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the Department of Biology exploring bacterial interactions and regulatory networks. As an agronomist, her research focuses on Biological Nitrogen Fixation, a process that allows certain microbes to convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form that the plants can use, mimicking the effect of chemical fertilisers. By studying the metabolism and physiology of these soil microbes, her goal is to uncover the molecular mechanisms that enable an efficient symbiosis with legume plants, what would support sustainable crop yields and a promote long-term positive impacts on the environment.
Before joining Oxford, she obtained an MSc degree in Plant and Forest Biotechnology from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). She then completed her PhD in the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP), doing an internship at the Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland (Baltimore, USA). During her time at Oxford, she has been a lecturer in Biological Sciences at The Queen’s College and she is also involved in SRUK/CERU, being a former president and currently participating as a member of the working group in Oxford and the Science Policy department.