Rosa Maria Sebastián and Olga Francino are among the 80 leading women in STEAM at APTE's science and technology parks.

The Association of Scientific and Technological Parks of Spain (APTE) has published the first list of female STEAM role models linked to the country's scientific and technological parks, as part of the ‘Science and Technology in Femenino’ initiative, which this year reaches its eighth edition. The list includes 80 professionals from 38 member parks, with careers spanning fields from biomedical science to artificial intelligence, including energy, meteorology and nanotechnology.

The list of leading women in STEAM is part of the “Science and Technology in the Feminine” initiative, which aims to bring science and technology closer to secondary school and sixth-form students and to reduce the gender gap in STEAM professions.

Among these 80 women are two leading figures linked to the UAB Research Park: Rosa Maria Sebastián, Vice-Rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship at UAB and Director of the UAB Research Park, and Olga Francino, PhD in Genetics, researcher at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at UAB and founder and Managing Director of the companies Vetgenomics and Nano1Health.

The presence of Rosa Maria Sebastián and Olga Francino on APTE's list of women in STEAM highlights the role of the UAB Research Park as a key hub for promoting female leadership in research, knowledge transfer and impact entrepreneurship. From the Park, projects are promoted that connect science with the needs of the productive fabric, fostering the creation of innovative companies and the generation of solutions in areas such as health, biotechnology and digital technology.

The example of Vetgenomics and Nano1Health, born from UAB research and located at the UAB Research Park, illustrates how female scientific and entrepreneurial talent is capable of transforming knowledge into new tools for the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of diseases in animals and people, reinforcing the integrated approach to global health.

Rosa Maria Sebastián, Director of the UAB Research Park and a leading figure in the scientific field.

Rosa Maria Sebastián holds a PhD in Chemistry from the UAB and currently serves as the university's Vice-Rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship and as Director of the UAB Research Park. Her research career spans from the study and synthesis of small molecules and macromolecules to the development of new polymeric materials. This track record has resulted in over a hundred indexed scientific articles and several patents.

She has participated in numerous national and European projects, as well as in various scientific networks, and coordinates an established research group. His work also stands out for its close collaboration with the business sector, with multiple contracts with companies that have resulted in more than a dozen patents in operation, industrial doctorates and the National Research Award for the public-private partnership between UAB and Henkel KGaA & Co.

Olga Francino, geneticist and entrepreneur in the service of animal health and One Health

Olga Francino holds a PhD in Genetics from the UAB and is a researcher in the Department of Animal and Food Science at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, UAB, with extensive experience in molecular biology and animal genomics. At the same time, she is Director of the Veterinary Molecular Genetics Service (SVGM) at UAB, accredited by the Generalitat with the TECNIO label as a high-specialisation technology agent.

Francino is the founder and Managing Director of Vetgenomics, a technology-based company created in 2011 as UAB's first spin-off company, specialising in genetic diagnosis and animal genomics, and in the development and transfer of genomic technology for the animal health and production sector. She is also the director of Nano1Health, a biotechnology company dedicated to the rapid and accurate identification of microorganisms, pathogens and drug resistance biomarkers using sequencing and bioinformatics analysis technologies from a One Health perspective.