DrMaria Valdivia Garcia

I am a Research Associate in the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction at Imperial College London. My work combines analytical chemistry and metabolomics, specialising in the development, optimisation and validation of quantitative methods for organic compounds—including organo‑halogenated species, amines, carboxylic acids, bile acids, amino acids and lipids—in environmental and biological matrices.
Current research focuses on improving coverage and quantification of polar metabolites (amines and short chain fatty acids) by optimising derivatisation, ion‑pairing for LC–MS workflows. These methods support investigations across the Department’s Nutrition, Microbiome and Gut Health themes.
Alongside LC–MS, I am establishing excitation–emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence as an independent line of research for rapid single-cell fingerprinting, and setting up desorption electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry imaging (DESI‑MSI) as a new analytical platform at the National Phenome Centre.

Methods & platforms
FTIR; UV/Vis; EEM fluorescence; UPLC–MS/MS; UPLC–QTOF; DESI‑MSI; derivatisation, ion‑pairing; targeted and untargeted metabolomics; method validation.