Contact
Email: mmartinez@uva.es
Phone: +34 979108385
Mario Martínez Martínez
Profesor Titular / Consolidated Researcher AEI
Affiliations
Main affiliation
-Profesor Titular, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Food Technology Division, University of Valladolid
Other affiliations
-Associate Professor, Department of Food Science, Aarhus University, Denmark.
-Adjunct Associate Professor, Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research, Purdue University, USA.
-Editor, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules.
Profile
Mario Martínez is Profesor Titular and Consolidated Researcher (Research Consolidation 2023, AEI) in the Food Technology Area at the University of Valladolid. He began his independent research career as an Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) at the University of Guelph (ON, Canada) in August 2017, where he received the College of Engineering and Physical Science (CEPS) Assistant Professor Research Excellence Award from the Faculty of Physics and Engineering at the University of Guelph, the Ontario Early Researcher Award (ERA) from the Government of Ontario, and the Young Scientist Award from the Cereals & Grains Association in the United States. Mario Martínez joined Aarhus University in April 2020 as an Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track), where his research was recognized with prestigious awards and elite grants, including the Nils Foss Talent Prize 2021 (Foss Analytics, Denmark) and the DFF-Sapere Aude excellence project (Denmark, equivalent to the ERC-Starting Grant in terms of economic amount, prestige, and success rate). In June 2024, he joined the University of Valladolid as an Associate Professor through two talent-attraction programs. In addition to his main affiliation at the University of Valladolid, Mario holds secondary positions as an Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University and as an Adjunct Professor at the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research (Purdue University, USA). Mario has been an editor of the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules since September 2023.
Research lines
- Structure-function relationships in relation to building novel foods and food packaging materials.
- Analytical methods to elucidate structural features of polysaccharides, including monomer composition, linkage patterns, sequencing, hydrodynamic and molecular weight, anomeric configuration and chain length distributions.
- Chemical, enzymatic and physical modifications of plant polysaccharides and proteins.
- Interactions between food macromolecules and small metabolites (e.g., polyphenols) in complex systems.
- Health aspects, particularly the digestion and bioaccesibility of plant biopolymers and phenolic compounds and the role of polysaccharides as dietary fiber.
- Physical properties, including the rheological and colloidal properties of edible systems.
- The encapsulation and controlled release of active compounds for inclusion in food formulations.
- The film forming properties of plant polysaccharides and proteins with application in edible films, coatings and active packaging.