Diego Mateo is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Institute of Chemical Technology (ITQ), specializing in photocatalysis and photothermal catalysis for the production of solar fuels. He holds a Ph.D. in Sustainable Chemistry from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), where he received the Extraordinary Doctoral Award (2019), and has spent his career at both the ITQ and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), where he led a research group on photothermal catalysis during his postdoctoral fellowship (2019–2025).

He is the author of more than 30 publications in high-impact journals and participates in international projects related to sustainable energy and CO₂ utilization.