Nuria got her Master of Mechanical Engineering in 2006 and obtained her degree of Doctor of Materials Engineering in 2010 from Ghent University, where she investigated the mechanical anisotropy of pipeline steels using crystal plasticity models. The same year, she joined OCAS / ArcelorMittal Global R&D in Ghent, Belgium. Since, she led the development of new steel grades for oil and gas pipelines, including pipelines with low temperature toughness and pipelines for sour service.
Nuria participated and coordinated multiple international research collaborations with universities mainly through coordination of MSc and PhD thesis, and other research institutes and industries through JIPs or funded institutional collaborations such as Horizon or RFCS. Her main field of research focuses on the physical metallurgy of steel during industrial processing such as recrystallization, precipitation, grain growth or phase transformation. Other areas of research include: austenite reconstruction, fracture toughness of steel and degradation of the fracture toughness in severe sour service conditions, prediction of steel properties, after forming, using crystal plasticity modelling and microstructural based models.
Nowadays Nuria is leading the ArcelorMittal R&D program of steel for the energy transition, covering structural grades for wind, and line pipe and pressure vessel grades for emerging fuels, among others.