Prof. María-José Polo is the current Vicepresident of Scientific Policy in the University of Cordoba (UCO). Prof. Polo has\na degree in Agricultural Engineering (1992), with the second national prize of graduated students in that year. She joined UCO in 1999 as Associate Professor, being Full Professor of Hydraulic Engineering in UCO since 2016. Since 2006, she has developed different coordination, management, and decision-making roles in the university: member of the “Claustro” since 2006, General Secretary of UCO (2006-2010), Director of a MSc degree and Coordinator of a PhD (2006-2017), and Academic Coordinator of the International Campus of Excellence in Agrifood, ceiA3, integrated by five universities and chaired by UCO. She has also been carrying out advisory work in the Spanish Agency of Research-PIN area, as expert member of Hydraulic Engineering in the Civil Engineering and Arquitecture scientific subarea (2017-2021), scientific evaluator in a wide range of EU calls and panels (MSCA,\nH2020, ERC, among others), expert evaluator in the ACADEMIA-ANECA program, and in different committees of Spanish calls for funding of human resources in research, such as Juan de la Cierva, Ramón y Cajal, and FPU.

Prof. Polo has developed an academic career since she was a university student. She got a Bachelorship for the Introduction to Research and Teaching (1991-1993) by the Spanish Ministry of Education, and later a PhD Fellowship of the FPI Program (1994-1997). Her PhD work (1997) was awarded by national prizes, the Fundación Caja Madrid prize for Environment, the Fertiberia Prize to Research in Agriculture, and by UCO. After\na posdoc period in the IFAPA, she joined UCO in 1999 in the School of Agriculture and Forestry Engineering first, and also teaching in the Civil Engineering degree in the Politechnical School of Belmez, where she has been leading research in transport processes and water quality, and hydrology of\nMediterranean watersheds, with focus on processes, modelling, observation, and service development in water and natural resources management.

Prof. Polo funded and leads the research group of Fluvial Dynamics and Hydrology since 2009. She has been PI of\na large number of research projects funded by Spanish and Andalusian calls, and by different EU programs, and she has promoted innovation and research, with a large number of publications and impact results. She has also developed and\nintense work as supervisor of PhD and MSc students. In 2011, she was member of the Committee of Creation of the Andalusian Institute for Earth System Research, and interuniversity research institute, which chaired in UCO during 2011-2022. She has been member of different international networks and committees, and her career was recognized with the Dooge Medal- International Hydrology Prize 2022, by IAHS-UNESCO-WMO, being the first Spanish researcher with this distinction. Since 2022, she has joined by public call the\nInternational Task Force on Biodiversity of the European Geophysical Union as expert in hydrology and water resources.