Marina Garcia Lopez-Arias earned her bachelor’s degree (2018) and master’s degree (2021) in civil and structural engineering from University of A Corua, Spain. Currently, she is a PhD student in civil engineering at Purdue University, where her research focus is on tackling climate change through civil engineering materials innovation. She aims to develop materials with proactive sustainable properties, including CO2 absorption, reduced energy consumption in buildings, and air pollutant reduction. She has published nine journal papers, presented at six conferences and symposiums, and is part of two patent applications. She foresees her work taking on an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating perspectives from related fields to develop holistic solutions to sustainability challenges. She also will evaluate resiliency in sustainable concrete infrastructure subjected to extreme weather, rising sea levels, and temperature fluctuations. Throughout her PhD, she has directed her mentoring to underrepresented groups in STEM, including participants in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Women in Engineering, and the Summer Institute for Climate Change & Coastal Resilience. As a professor, Lopez-Arias will ensure that guest speakers and lecturers represent diverse backgrounds and identities, provide accessible resources to students with disabilities and diverse learning requirements, and will seek and use frequent feedback to adjust teaching methods and course content to better meet her students’ needs.

Research Interests

Sustainable construction materials