Dr. Piñero Cruz is a former student of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. She obtained her doctoral degree in 2009 with a thesis titled: “Coordination Chemistry of Fe-Pyrazole/ate Complexes Based on the Study of their Structural, Electrochemical, Magnetic and Spectroscopic Properties”, mentored by Raphael G. Raptis. As a student, she had the opportunity of becoming an invited researcher at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, to work at the Radiation Laboratories on the “Mechanistic and Energetic Aspects of the Thermal and Photochemical Redox Chemistry of the Octanuclear Cubane Complexes, Fe(III)8(μ4-O4) (pyrazolate)12X4 (X = Cl or Br)” through a collaboration with Guillermo Ferraudi.

She obtained a thesis dissertation award from the National Science Foundation that founded three visits to the Institute of Material Science in Demokritos, Greece, for conducting “Mössbauer Spectroscopic Studies of Redox-Active Fe4O4-Cubanes” with the training and supervision of Yiannis Sanakis.

In June 2009 Dr. Piñero joined the ‘Groupe de Sciences Moléculaires: Matériaux Photo-, Piézo-, Thermo-sensibles’ at the ‘Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux’, France, as a postdoctoral fellow from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. She worked under the supervision of Corine Mathonière on the project of “Multi-Shell Magnétiques Nanoparticules de Coordination (MS MGNP)” while collaborating with Rodolphe Clérac from the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, Pessac, on the “Synthesis of pyridine-based ligands for magnetic studies of cyanide linked transition metal complexes capable of undergoing photo-induced electron transfer processes”. Thereafter, she joined the MaCSE Group at the University of Rennes, France, to work on the synthesis and magnetic properties of “Nickel-Dithiolene Complexes as Metallo-Ligands”under the supervision ofMarc Fourmigué. Lastly, she joined the University of Bordeaux as an adjunct assistant professor and worked as a researcher at the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, on the “Synthesis of Single Molecule Magnets from polyamines spyder-like building blocks”. In 2014 she was hired as an assistant professor of the Chemistry Department at the UPR-RP where she has started a research laboratory group on Coordination Chemistry.