Sonia Contera
Profile view of Contera gesturing with her hand as she speaks
Contera speaking in 2019
Born1970
Madrid
NationalitySpanish
Alma materAutonomous University of Madrid
Osaka University
OccupationPhysicist
EmployerUniversity of Oxford
TitleProfessor of Biological Physics

Sonia Antoranz Contera (born 1970) is a Spanish physicist. She serves as Professor of Biological Physics at the University of Oxford,[1] a senior fellow at the Oxford Martin School,[2] and a senior research fellow at Green Templeton College.[3]

Early life and education

Sonia Antoranz Contera, born 1970, is from Madrid, Spain.[4] She studied for her Licenciatura in physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid.[5] She went on to study in Moscow, Prague and Beijing.[6] She received her PhD from Osaka University in 2000, where her supervisor was Hiroshi Iwasaki.[7][5]

Having traveled extensively during her education, Contera speaks Spanish, English, Chinese, Czech, Russian, Danish, Japanese, German and French.[4]

Research and career

Contera's research uses physics and nanotechnology to understand biological problems.[8][9] She has a special interest in the role of mechanics in biology and designs nanomaterials that mimic biological functions for biomedical applications such as drug delivery[1] and tissue engineering.[10] In 2003, she began working at Oxford.[4] Contera was Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Nanotechnology for Medicine from 2008 to 2013.[11][12] In 2014–2016, she was a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Nanotechnology.[13][14] In 2017, Contera was appointed Chair of the Scanning Probe Microscopy Section of the Royal Microscopical Society.[15]

Contera's book Nano Comes to Life: How Nanotechnology is transforming medicine and the future of Biology (Princeton University Press) was published December 2019.[16][17] The book was reviewed by Nature,[18] Nature Physics,[19] the New Scientist,[20] BBC Science Focus[21] and was featured in BBC Radio 4 "Start of the Week".[22] It was published in paperback in 2022, in Chinese by CITIC press and in Japanese by Newton Press.

Contera is also a public speaker on the medical, philosophical and social consequences of the science emerging at the interface of nanotechnology, physics and biology; she has spoken in forums such as the Royal Institution of Great Britain[23] She also writes on communication and the mission of science.[24]

References

  1. ^ a b "Sonia Contera". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  2. ^ "Fellows". Oxford Martin School. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  3. ^ "Dr Sonia Antoranz Contera". Green Templeton College. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  4. ^ a b c Oppenheimer, Walter (26 December 2012). "La medicina del futuro". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  5. ^ a b "ORCID". orcid.org. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  6. ^ Oppenheimer, Walter (2012-12-26). "La medicina del futuro". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  7. ^ "Sonia Antoranz Contera | University of Oxford Department of Physics". www2.physics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  8. ^ "Sonia Contera - EPSRC website". epsrc.ukri.org. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  9. ^ Levine, Alaina G. (November 14, 2014). "Biosystems nanotechnology: Big opportunities in the science of the small". Science. AAAS. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  10. ^ Luna, Mónica (August 22, 2011). "Nano-ingeniería de tejidos para medicina regenerativa". El Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  11. ^ "Professor Sonia Contera | People". Oxford Martin School. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  12. ^ Rius, Mayte (2016-05-07). "¿Somos como dicen los estereotipos?". La Vanguardia. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  13. ^ "Global Agenda Councils - World Economic Forum". widgets.weforum.org. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  14. ^ Paniagua, Esther (2016-07-19). "Sonia es profesora en Oxford: "Eliminaría los exámenes en primaria"". El Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  15. ^ "Scanning Probe Microscopy". www.rms.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  16. ^ "Nano Comes to Life by Sonia Contera | Waterstones". www.waterstones.com. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  17. ^ CONTERA, SONIA. (2019). NANO COMES TO LIFE : how nanotechnology is transforming medicine and the future of biology. [S.l.]: PRINCETON UNIV PRESS. ISBN 978-0691168807. OCLC 1099683369.
  18. ^ Kiser, Barbara (2019-12-10). "A heliocentric epic, volcanic viniculture, and cartoon chemistry: Books in brief". Nature. 576 (7786): 207. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03757-0.
  19. ^ Horejs, Christine-Maria (March 2020). "I, nanorobot". Nature Physics. 16 (3): 239. doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0820-1. ISSN 1745-2481.
  20. ^ "Educational access digital subscriptions | New Scientist". institutions.newscientist.com. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  21. ^ "Sonia Contera on nanotechnology". BBC Science Focus Magazine. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  22. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Numbers, nightmares and nanotech". BBC. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  23. ^ The Issues We Face at the Nano Scale - with Sonia Contera, retrieved 2021-09-15
  24. ^ Contera, Sonia (May 2021). "Communication is central to the mission of science". Nature Reviews Materials. 6 (5): 377–378. doi:10.1038/s41578-021-00316-w. ISSN 2058-8437. PMC 8043085. PMID 33868716.

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