María A. Castrillo Romón (Valladolid, 1965) is an architect (1991) and a PhD in urban planning (1997). She is a researcher and teacher of the Instituto Universitario de Urbanística (IUU) and professor of urban planning in the Department of urban planning, both of the University of Valladolid (Spain). She is also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Ciudades (Spain), Espaces et sociétés (France), Mesto a dejiny (City and History) (Slovakia) and the scientific board of Cuadernos de información urbanística (Spain). From September 2016 to December 2020, she was the director of the IUU, and she is currently local director of UrbanHist, a European joint doctorate on the history of 20th century urbanism in Europe, funded by the European Union (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Innovative Training Networks H2020-MSCA-ITN -2016) and developed by four universities: Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Germany); Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach (Slovakia); Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (Sweden); and University of Valladolid (Spain), with eleven partner organizations based in Germany, Belgium, Slovakia, Spain, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Czech Republic and Sweden.

María A. Castrillo Romon has focused most of her research on the relationships between working-class housing and urban planning public practices and policies, from a historical approach and, also, from the urban criticism.

On the one hand, she has developed a historical approach to the relations established in the urban discourse between the problem of the working class housing and the problem of the town planning. Fruit of it are texts like, among others, Reformism, housing and city. Origins and development of a debate in Spain (1850-1920), Valladolid: UVa, 2001; European Influences on the Ley de casas baratas of 1911: the French reference of the Loi des habitations à bon marché of 1894, Madrid: IJH, 2003; “Some notes on the revision of Modern Urbanism”, in Arenillas Parra, T. (coord.), Ecología y ciudad: raíces de nuestros males y modos de tratarlos, Madrid: FIM, 2003; Urban planning as an ideological practice: historical approach and the current crossroads, Porto: CEAA, 2005; “Social Housing and Urban Planning: Reformist Traces in Current Practice”, Sociologia, No. 13, 2003) or Ciudades, 6 (2000-2001), issu “The Garden City a hundred years later” (co-edited with R.-H. Guerrand).

On the other hand, she has also developed the study of urban rehabilitation, renewal and regeneration practices and policies, as much in historical cities as in modern peripheries, in particular, the public housing estates of 1950-1975. María Castrillo Romón has developed her analyses from an urbanistic approach, related to the diagnosis and prospective, in works like Study for the remodeling of the neighborhoods of Pajarillos and Rondilla (Valladolid) (2001); or Needs and opportunities of urban rehabilitation in the first residential suburbs of the cities of Castilla y León: definition of a method of evaluation from the study of two cases (Burgos and Valladolid) (2006-2007). She has also participated in several research projects of the R+D+I National Plan: The areas of integrated rehabilitation and their effects on the recovery of historic urban spaces (Code: CSO2013-40688-P); Strategy for the design and evaluation of plans and programs for integrated urban regeneration. The intervention in the Spanish peripheries through the Integrated Rehabilitation Areas and the URBAN program (Ref. BIA2012-31905); Integrated urban regeneration, intervention in housing estates from 1960 to 1980. Urban integration, social cohesion and environmental responsibility (Ref. BIA2011-26973); Urban policies applied to historical groups: achievements and failures: towards a proposal of urban rehabilitation as an alternative to the extensive real estate model (Ref .: CSO2010-15228); Housing production and asset recovery within the territorial framework of historical centers: in relation to urban economies that are promoted or reduced, as a consequence of declarations, as assets and cultural interest, of historical centers (Ref. SEJ2006 -01530 / SOCI), among others.

María Castrillo has developed the criticism of urban rehabilitation and renovation practices in publications such as “Réhabilitation et rénovation urbaine en Espagne: des habitants aux rôles très divers” in Desponds D. et al. (ed.), Les habitants: acteurs de la rénovation urbaine ?, Rennes: PUR, 2014 (in collaboration with E. Castrillo); “Urbanists ‘in transition’? The anthropological approach to urban improvement and its effects on urban design “, Ciudad y territorio/Estudios territoriales, nº 179, 2014; or in the edition of Espaces et Sociétés, 152-153, nº 1-2 / 2013, dossier “Aléas de la patrimonialisation urbaine” (with J.P. Garnier). This criticism has sometimes been based on a historical approach, as in the case of “Urbanisme et militantisme de quartier dans les quartiers populaires de Valladolid (Espagne)”, Espaces et sociétés, 2008/3, 134 (with L. Santos ); “Urban renewal urban planning of large social housing units in France: Île-de-France, 2004-2008”, Proyecto, Progreso, Arquitectura, nº 2, 2010; “The practice of contemporary architecture in Spanish historical cities. Notes for a historical-urbanistic approach “, Espacio, tiempo y forma, series VII, History of Art, t. 24, 2011 (with M. Jiménez); “And now that? Crisis and rehabilitation of neighborhoods in Spain “, Bitácora urbano-territorial, nº23 (2), 2013 (in collaboration with M. Jiménez, M. Domingo and C. Sánchez); “La réhabilitation urbaine: un politique imposible?”, in Coudroy de Lille, L .; Vaz, C. et Vorms, Ch. L’urbanisme espagnol depuis les années 1970. La ville, démocratie et le marché, Rennes: PUR, 2013; or “Notes for a history of urban rehabilitation in Spain or what historical bases for what ‘new development’?”, VII CIOT Madrid 2014. VII International Congress of land management. Heritage and territorial planning as instruments for another development.

Since 1991, María Castrillo Romón has also been teacher in subjects related to urban planning and design, housing production and urban rehabilitation, within the various curricula, leading to the professional qualification of the architects by the School of Architecture of Valladolid (Spain), as well as in the Master in Research of the Architecture and in the PhD Program in Architecture of the University of Valladolid. She has also been a teacher in specialization programs and professional and research masters in Spain and France, and in several PhD programs of the University of Valladolid in Spain, Mexico and Portugal, where she has supervised or co- supervised several PhD theses: Modern urbanistic transformations on the historical space of Santarém (1834-1948) by Ana Lidia Moreira Machado Santos de Virtudes (2008); Formation and evolution of the center of Porto (1850-2001). Approach to a transdisciplinary analysis of the urban center as a total social fact by Adriano Zilhâo de Queirós Nogueira (2008); Shopping (&) Center. On consumption, the city and shopping centers in Portugal and Europe by  Miguel Farinha dos Santos Silva Graça (2011); and Production and transformation of the residential space of the low-income population in Bogotá within the framework of neoliberal policies, 1990-2008.: an interpretation based on four case studies in the town of Ciudad Bolívar by Carlos A. Torres Tovar (2011), awarded the 2nd place in the category A of the Infonavit-Redalyc Iberoamerican Award for Research Thesis on Sustainable Housing 2012.