Lucía Castellano Rotger

Lucía Castellano Rotger is currently hired at the AMBI Lab as a lipid biomarkers laboratory technician. She specialises in the processing and extraction of several lipid compounds from sediments, excrements, and plants from archaeological and natural sedimentary sequences. Holding a BA degree in History (Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife) and an MA degree in Education (Universidad Europea de Canarias), she has spent her career exploring ways to integrate humanities and STEM.

During her one-year INVESTIGO programme contract (Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, Spanish Government), she learned hands-on protocols in organic chemistry and started collaborating with postdoctoral research fellows and Ph.D. students at the AMBI Lab. Since then, Lucía has been honing her skills in lipid biomarkers analysis.

In addition to her role as a technician, she is also pursuing a Ph.D. under the supervision of Associate Professor Natalia Égüez (IPNA-CSIC). Her dissertation explores lipid and isotopic biogeochemistry in dung and sediments from Central Asian archaeological sites. Her research aims to shed light on nomadic societies’ socioeconomic and ecological dynamics, with a particular focus on human-animal interactions, domesticates diet and wild vs. domesticates movement ecology. She also collaborates in several archaeological projects spanning the early Pleistocene to the Iron Age.

When she’s not in the lab, Lucía enjoys relaxing at home with her furry companion, Neva.