Leonarda Garcia Lopez joins the group as a Project Manager

Leonarda joins our group as a Project Manager to provide administrative support to the ERC Synergy Grant Q-Xtreme (2021-2017).

Leonarda’s academic background is in “international Management and Applied Languages” from Universities in France, Spain and Ireland as well as post-graduate “international Management” studies and several exchange programs.

Leonarda has gained work experience in a diverse range of large multi-national corporations in Europe and overseas. The main focus of her positions has been customer service, logistics, operational management as well as project management, with in-depth experience of working closely with and supporting Upper Management on a CEO level.

After several years in profit-and market-oriented companies, Leonarda felt a strong and growing desire to join a humanitarian-oriented organization or an academic organization. She joined the University of Innsbruck on January 2004, first as operational manager for the “Semantic Technology Institute, Computer Sciences” research group. Due to her good understanding of numbers and the growing need for budgeting, controlling and support in project acquisition and reporting within the group, she moved to the position of financial administration officer for European and national research projects within the same research group and its three spin-offs (seekda GmbH, Playence GmbH and STI International).

STI Innsbruck – Prof. Fensel testimonial

For nearly twelve years, Leonarda has managed all of STI Innsbruck's finance operations of around 30 Milllion Euro (almost always) single-handedly, while remaining the calm, polite, friendly and reliable person she has been from the beginning. Had there ever been a "Messiest desk" competition, she would have won it easily; however, she never had a dead mouse in her drawer.

In 2015, Leonard joined the Technology Transfer Office – Science, Economy and Society of the University of Innsbruck, servicing any department at the University of Innsbruck with financial project management and project controlling with EU, Interreg, international projects or national fundings. Her services include all areas of project management from the project application to interim and final reporting, as well as first and second level audits.

Since 2019, Leonard is part and takes care of the financial administration of the Quantum Flagship Office of the University of Innsbruck, which shows the efforts of the university within the framework of the EU flagship initiative and serves as a point of contact for potential partners from Austria and abroad.