Prof. Natividad Carpintero-Santamaría is Full Professor at the Department of Energy Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and serves as General Secretary of the Institute of Nuclear Fusion (UPM). She has lectured widely across the globe, including in Armenia, Australia, the European Union, Jordan, Latin America, the Russian Federation, Turkey, and the United States.

Her academic work spans nuclear fusion, energy systems, and the history and ethics of science and technology. She is the author of The Atom Bomb: The Human Factor during Second World War (Díaz de Santos, 2007) and co-editor, with Guillermo Velarde, of Inertial Confinement Nuclear Fusion: A Historical Approach by its Pioneers (Foxwell & Davies, 2007), a title recommended by the EUROfusion Consortium of the European Commission. She has also published chapters and papers with Springer, Routledge, Cambridge Scholars, and Elsevier.

Prof. Carpintero-Santamaría is a member of the Commission for Energy and Security and Defence of the Centre for National Defence Studies (CESEDEN) and sits on the General Council of EuroDefense-Spain. Her career has been recognised with several national honours, including the Alfonso XIII Prize in History of Applied Science (Spanish Academy of Sciences, 1991), the Cross of Aeronautical Merit (White Distinction) (2011), and the Cross of Military Merit (White Distinction) (2015).

Prof. Natividad Carpintero-Santamaría has served as Member of the Presidium of the European Academy of Sciences across two mandates: March 2015 – February 2019; March 2019 – February 2023, extended until April 2024 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (in accordance with the EurASc Bylaws).