The CERCA center Agrotecnio has recently incorporated 3 new young researchers of excellence who will join the research groups in the area of agronomy and environment coordinated by the centre. They are three researchers with an international profile who will form part of Agrotecnio’s own staff and who are specialised in organic waste management, soil science, eco-hydrology and forest ecology. They are Evan A.N. Marks, Aida Bargués Tobella and Martina Sánchez-Pinillos.
Evan A.N. Marks is a researcher in soil quality and organic waste management. He specialises in the study of the agricultural application of a wide variety of wastes of relevance in Spain, such as pig slurry and olive oil mill residues, as well as nutrient recovery by different processes. He also researches on the use of biofertilisers (living microorganisms) from the perspective of soil quality, on which he has published several papers and has collaborated with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) to describe soil conservation practices. He has worked as a researcher at the universities of Elche and Burgos, and at the research centres Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya and the BETA technology centre in Vic. In Agrotecnio, Marks wants to deepen in the acceleration of soil recarbonisation and the relationship between soil quality and agricultural efficiency and food quality.
Aida Bargués Tobella is a Forest Engineer (University of Lleida) and holds a PhD in soil science (SLU, Sweden). Her research focuses on the restoration and sustainable management of drylands, and in particular the effects of tree cover, land use and management practices on soil health and water availability. Bargués Tobella has worked as a researcher at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya, and at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umeå, Sweden. She is principal investigator of the ‘Restore4More’ and‘Afrogrow’ (2025-2028) projects. She is co-author of some twenty peer-reviewed publications in high-level international journals, as well as various reports, book chapters and international policy briefs.
Forestry engineer Martina Sánchez-Pinillos has been awarded with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant at the University of Montpellier and has worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Quebec in Montreal. Her research is characterised by a strong multidisciplinary approach, combining quantitative ecology, forest ecology and silviculture. In particular, Sánchez-Pinillos focuses on developing innovative tools to analyse the resilience of forests to different types of disturbances and to provide empirical evidence of forest communities and ecological processes that need to be prioritised in conservation and restoration plans. In addition to publishing scientific articles in high-impact journals, Sánchez-Pinillos is the creator of several technological tools.
The three new researchers have been selected by a committee external to Agrotecnio, made up of international scientists created in 2024.
Agrotecnio’s mission is to develop high-impact translational research for the benefit of the agri-food sector. Agrotecnio’s research draws on a broad range of expertise in agronomic and environmental sciences, animal sciences and food sciences with the concept of ‘one health’ in mind, an integrated and unifying approach to balance and optimise the health of people, animals, plants and the environment. The centre currently has 15 research groups from three main areas (agronomy and environment, animal science and food technology) belonging to two Catalan universities, the University of Lleida and the University of Barcelona, and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA).
Martina Sánchez-Pinillos
Aida Bargués Tobella Photo credit: ©FAO/PilarValbuena.
Evan A.N. Marks