Martinez Sanja, F.C.A.

Full members IX. Department of Technical Sciences
Martinez Sanja

Date of birth:

  • 12/23/1968

Place of birth:

  • Zagreb

Addresses:

  • Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb, Marulićev trg 19, 10000 Zagreb

Telephone:

  • +385 91 5335101

E-mail addresses:

  • sanja.martinez@fkit.unizg.hr

Martinez Sanja, F.C.A.

Full members IX. Department of Technical Sciences

Academic titles:

  • academician
  • doctor of science

Institutions:

  • full professor with tenure – Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb

Membership in the Academy:

  • full member – Departement of technical sciences (5/21/2026 – …)

Biography

Sanja Martinez was born on 23 December 1968 in Zagreb, where she completed her primary and secondary education. She graduated in engineering physics from the Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb (1993). She obtained her Master’s degree (1998) and PhD (2000) in chemical engineering from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb. She has been employed at the same faculty since 1994, and has held the position of full professor with tenure since 2017. She has been appointed to all academic ranks within the technical sciences, in the field of chemical engineering and in the field of fundamental technical sciences, branch of materials.

She teaches courses in electrochemistry and corrosion at the doctoral, graduate and undergraduate levels. She was the head of the university postgraduate interdisciplinary specialist study programme Corrosion and Protection. She has supervised more than 80 bachelor’s and master’s theses and has served as supervisor to five and co-supervisor to three doctoral candidates, with three doctoral candidates currently in the final stage of their research. She has served as a member of doctoral defence committees at the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse / CNRS (2013), the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Sarajevo (2016), the Faculty of Metallurgy and Technology in Podgorica (2020), and the Technical University of Denmark – DTU (2026).

The research activity of Prof. Sanja Martinez focuses on electrochemistry, corrosion and materials protection, with particular emphasis on the development and application of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and the integration of machine learning methods in the analysis of electrochemical data. She is the author of more than 60 scientific papers, several of which are highly cited. From 2019 to 2024, she was included in the Stanford–Elsevier list of the world’s top 2% most influential scientists, in both the career-long and single-year categories.

She has participated in numerous national and international research projects, including projects funded by the Croatian Science Foundation and the EU programmes, with notable involvement in a HORIZON-EIC Pathfinder project. From 2014 to 2025, she served as local coordinator of a CEEPUS project and as a long-standing member of the committee of the international conference Young Investigators’ Seminar on Analytical Chemistry. She was the Croatian national contact for the Metals working group of the International Council of Museums – Committee for Conservation (ICOM-CC).

Over the course of her career she has led more than 50 professional and industrial projects in the areas of corrosion, cathodic protection and infrastructure diagnostics, and has organised more than 40 professional seminars and training courses for industry. She is president of the Croatian Society for Materials Protection, has chaired Technical Committee TC 504 – Corrosion and Protection of Metals and Alloys at the Croatian Standards Institute, and has served as an assessor for accreditation bodies in Croatia and Slovenia. She is co-author of a university textbook and editor of the Dictionary of Professional Terminology in the Field of Corrosion and Materials Protection (Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics, 2015).

She is co-owner of ReCorrTech d.o.o., a spin-off company of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb, to which the electrochemical technology for testing the barrier properties of coatings, developed at the home faculty, has been licensed and successfully commercialised in collaboration with global industrial partners. She is a recipient of several gold medals at international innovation exhibitions, and in 2025 was awarded the „Fran Bošnjaković“ Award and the Innovation Award of the University of Zagreb.