Sonia Contera

She is a professor of physics at Oxford University. A graduate of the Autonomous University of Madrid, she pursued her training in Moscow, Prague and Beijing, taking her doctorate at the University of Osaka. In Japan, she explored nanotechnology and the relationship between matter, life and intelligence, areas that have shaped her research career. Since 2003, she has been teaching and conducting research at Oxford, leading projects at the intersection of physics, biology, nanotechnology and information science. Her work includes pioneering applications in medicine, bio-inspired materials and the development of neurochips. she combines her scientific work with writing and publishing: she is the author of the books Nanotecnología viva (2023) and Seis problemas que la ciencia no puede resolver (2025), and writes regularly for El País newspaper. She recently explored the dialogue between science and art as author of a text for the catalogue of the exhibition Hacer y deshacerse (2026) by sculptor Cristina Almodóvar.