Teresa J. Leo is Full Professor in Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering at ETSI Navales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM. Her research activity began as a lecturer at the University of Cadiz with the preparation of her PhD thesis, being defended at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid, where she graduated.

She is founder and leader of the UPM Research Group Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Technologies and Reciprocating Engines, PiCoHiMA. She leads the UPM Community "Hydrogen and Fuel Cells". She is a member of Hydrogen Europe Research, the Spanish Hydrogen Association (AEH2), the Spanish Maritime Technology Platform (PTME), the Spanish Platform for Hydrogen (PTEH2). She has authored more than 100 scientific publications, 74 indexed (44 JCR) summing more than 900 citations, participated in more than 25 R&D projects and presented more than 70 papers at national and international congresses. She has 4 positive research sections, sexenios (date of the last one: 31/12/2017).

1)    Contributions to science: Since 2008, she has contributed to science in the field of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC), polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), and alternative emissions-free fuels, focusing on H₂ and CH₃OH. She has led different research lines towards improving DMFC in the framework of 5 national funding programs, under the role of Principal Investigator (PI) in all of them, and 1 regional funding program as the PI UPM partner and participates in competitive European R&D projects being the PI of the UPM partner. She collaborates with Spanish Universities (UCM, UPV, URV) and research institutions (CSIC, INTA). She coordinates one of the action lines (Hydrogen Uses) of the Comunidad de Madrid project in Energy and Green H₂ from Next Generation Funds. In 2017 she founded the UPM PiCoHiMA Research Group. In the last 10 years, her research results have been communicated in many scientific publications (44 JCR); national and international congresses (72); 2 seminars (organising 1); 2 workshops; 3 contributions at IEA H₂ TCP Task 39 Hydrogen in the Maritime meetings and its Final Report. The main goals of her research have been to reduce weight, volume, cost of DMFC systems for marine and aeronautical applications while increasing their performance and their lifetime; diversify the fuels used in the marine and aerial sectors to others more sustainable, less volatile in price and more responsible to society; reduce the production cost of green H₂ at sea through alkaline electrolysis; research alternative cheaper forms to perform bulk power transmission at sea over long distances; and reduce the emissions of non-zero-emission fuels through carbon capture. Teresa J. Leo has established international collaborations with the NTNU Norway, UQTR Canada, UNIGE Italy, Univ Bremen Germany; Univ Southampton UK; Univ Oklahoma USA; Univ Palermo Italy; POLITO, Italy. She represents the UPM at the Innovative, Sustainable, and Clean Energy Research and Education UNESCO Chair and collaborated with the SNAME in the USA through the M-45 Fuel Cells Panel.

2)    Contributions to society: She has registered 2 computer programs (Aero Marine DMFC and MedPEM); she has authored a report on the use of Fuel Cells in small and medium-sized ships for the Spanish Consortium of Shipyards PYMAR, which includes the basic engineering of a fuel-cell aquaculture support vessel; on behalf of PiCoHiMA, she offers scientific and technological services to Society, including R&D, consulting services, engineering, and training, all of them advertised in the Technological Catalogue of the PTE HPC, the Hydrogen Europe Research Catalogue, and the PiCoHiMA website; she has conducted science dissemination activities and workshops through the madri+d science week (2014-2023), youtube videos and web pages.

3)    Contribution to training of young researchers: She has supervised 5 PhD theses with cum laude, 4 of them dealing with fuel cells and H₂. She currently supervises 2 more PhD thesis. She is an expert evaluator of national and international research projects and is a reviewer of prestigious scientific journals. She has been a member of 17 Theses Examination Panels since 2011. She is the founder of the Fuel Cells Laboratory and Alternative Fuels at ETSIN (UPM) and co-founder of the Fuel Cells Laboratory at ETSI Aeronautics and Space (UPM).

Other contributions: She was a Committee Member of the M-45 Fuel Cells Panel of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME). She was Vice Dean for PhD Studies (2013-2018; 2021-2022) at ESTI Navales UPM. She was the Coordinator of Ingeniería Naval y Oceánica UPM Doctorate Program (2014-2018; 2021-2022). Her teaching activity is directly related to her research, Thermodynamics, Thermal Engineering and Hydrogen and Fuel Cells at Bachelor and Masters level. She has participated in 27 competitive Educational Innovation projects, leading 8, with more than 48 publications on the subject.