Maria’s research focuses on understanding the fate of legacy and emerging contaminants in groundwater flow systems. Her research integrates advanced tools to help decipher the intertwined hydrological and (bio)geochemical processes that control contaminant transport and transformation in subsurface environments. She employs a suite of advanced monitoring tools, such as stable isotopes (compound-specific isotope analysis), molecular biological tools and reactive transport modeling, among others, which provide multiple lines of evidence of sources and contaminant transformation in-situ. Maria’s work aims at improving the removal of groundwater contaminants via in-situ technologies and natural attenuation. Past and current studies focus on chlorinated solvents, metals, pesticides and micropollutants mixtures, including structurally complex compounds like PFAS. Maria received a training in environmental engineering  (University of Veracruz, Mexico) and specialized in hydrogeology during her master’s studies at the University of Tübingen (Germany). Maria obtained her PhD in (groundwater) hydrology from the University of Strasbourg (France). She continued as a postdoctoral fellow at Aix-Marseille University (France) and the University of Waterloo (Canada) prior to her position as an assistant professor at Polytechnique Montréal.