María Cristina Rodríguez-Sánchez
Dr. Rodríguez-Sánchez is an ITPS member since january 27, 2025. She received her Ph.D. in 2009, working on context-aware services, navigation, and telematics systems. She undertook a postdoctoral research stay at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, focusing on embedded systems, teaching, and international collaborations. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Electronics Area at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) and leads the SENiaLAB research laboratory. Additionally, she serves as the Academic Secretary of Research at the SmartE2 research group and co-director of the Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering.
Over the last ten years, her research has focused on sensory location and navigation in both routine and emergency contexts, emphasizing accessibility, bioengineering, instrumentation, sensor networks, and emergency monitoring, with some outcomes reaching commercial implementation. Currently, she leads several projects in monitoring, navigation, and emergency services in collaboration with key industry players, such as Vodafone Foundation, 112-Madrid, NTTData, Getronics, Alai Secure, Heart Squared Inc., DeepInSight, Auera Avionics, Madrid hospitals, the Alcorcón City Council, Madrid Emergency Services (112), the Professional Association of Fire Technicians (APTB), and the Alcorcón Fire Department.
In terms of technological innovation, her research has led to 8 patents (2 commercially exploited), 2 utility models, 2 commercial products, and 2 medical devices for real-time cardiac signal recording, which have received FDA certification and CE marking. She has received multiple awards for her contributions, including the European Satellite Navigation Competition (2014) for Ubica2 and GAWA, the MIT TR35 Innovators Award (2013) for projects with Vodafone Foundation, the National Instrument Award (2016), and the Best Patent CEI Award (2019) for Econocturna.
Additionally, she has been recognized in international conferences for her research in monitoring systems and sensor-based navigation, receiving several Best Paper Awards and distinctions in IoT and emergency services conferences, highlighting her contributions to real-time monitoring, smart emergency management solutions, and accessibility technologies.
Despite being accredited for a permanent faculty position in 2015, she only secured a permanent Associate Professorship in 2020, overcoming multiple challenges in leading her own research line. She has supervised 5 ongoing Ph.D. theses, more than 50 undergraduate theses, and 25 Master's theses, three of which have received awards. Additionally, she has mentored research assistants and has been an active reviewer for over 15 international scientific journals. She has also served as a project evaluator for ANEP and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (2015-2023).
Research profiles:
Keywords:
IoT, Monitoring, Electronic Technology, Sensorial Navigation, Accessibility, Bioengineering, Instrumentation, Sensor Networks, Emergency Monitoring, Smart Cities.