Education

María Virginia Candal Pazos earned her BS (1998) in Materials (Polymer) Engineering and her MSc (2002) in Mechanical Engineer from the Simon Bolivar University, Venezuela. Then, she obtained her Ph.D. (2011) in Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering from Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain.
Since 1998 to 2019, she was a full professor, researcher and industry trainer in Simon Bolivar University, Venezuela. She has been an invited professor at Tecnum (Spain), Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) and Universidad de Mar de Plata (Argentina) and researcher at Instituto de Capacitación del Plástico y Caucho (Colombia).
During the year 2019, she was participated in the Biodest project (European Union's Horizon 2020 a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement) in the University of Basque Country, Spain. She was working with biopolymers and biobased polymers in fused filament fabrication technique.

Honors and awards

She has received:
- Best undergraduate final work in the polymer area, giving by the venezuelan Association of Plastic Industries (AVIPLA) (1998).
- Honorable Mention in the "Orinoquia Award for Applied Research", giving by Asociación Civil Orinoquia, Venezuela (1998).
- Seven teaching awards and two awards related to her service activity to the industry at the Simon Bolivar University.
- Recognition as a Researcher level C (maximum category) of the Venezuelan Foundation for the Promotion of Researchers (2016, 2013, 2011).
- Recognition as one of the 20 young researchers chosen to appear in the book "Young Women in Science. Inspirational stories to science", published by the Academy of Sciences, Physics, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Venezuela (2018).

Research

She was working in different lines of research since 1998, all of them related to polymer processing (injection, blown, thermoforming, and injection stretch blown molding, 3d printing), mechanical properties of polymers, design of plastic parts including medical and consumer devices, design of injection molds, blends with loads and recycled materials and numerical modeling of polymer processing.
Actually, she is working in different research projects of the University of Basque Country related with the Advanced Multiphasic Polymers (AMP) Group, Rheology Group and Polymer Processing Group. The major research line is the fused filament fabrication of biopolymers.

Advanced Multiphasic Polymers (AMP) Group

Publications