Dra. Ma. Guadalupe del Carmen

Méndez Montealvo

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Phone +52 (55) 5729 6000 Ext. 81033

Field of Expertise
Biotechnology

Dr. Méndez Montealvo earned her Bachelor’s degree in Food Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí in 1991. She obtained her Master’s degree in Food Science and Technology in 1994 and her Ph.D. in Food Science in 2006, both from the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro.

In 1996, she joined the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), working at the entro de Investigacion en Productos bióticos. In June 2012, she became part of the faculty at the Centro de Investigación en Ciencia Aplicada y Tecnología Avanzada (CICATA), Queretaro.

In 2005–2006, she completed a 7-month research stay at INRA-Nantes, France. In 2008, she took a sabbatical year, followed by a two-year postdoctoral fellowship (2009–2010) at the Department of Food Science, University of Arkansas, USA.

She has co-authored 78 articles in international journals, and has supervised 4 Ph.D. students, 11 Master’s students, and 10 undergraduates to graduation. Currently, 3 Ph.D. students and 4 Master’s students are at various stages of their thesis work. She has been a Level I member of the National System of Researchers (SNI, Mexico) since 2007.

Her research focuses on the study and application of polysaccharides, primarily starch, as either functional ingredients or additives. Given that the ratio of amylose to amylopectin largely determines starch properties, her projects focus on studying and characterizing the organization and structure of these components, as well as investigating their applications in food products and as support materials for encapsulation systems or packaging materials. By characterizing these systems, her work aims to explain molecular-structural aspects using Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy, rheological measurements, thermal properties, and digestibility analyses.