About me

Scientific trajectory 

I am an inter-disciplinary researcher working in a range of topics in plant ecophysiology of Mediterranean woody crops and forests, terrestrial ecology, and ecohydrology. I lead projects on plant water uptake and use, agronomy, forest ecology, or land-atmosphere feedbacks, all of them in the context of climate change. My diverse skillset allow me to conduct research from local to global scale, from leaf- to ecosystem- or plot-scale, and from seconds to centurial scales. For this, I take measurements from the subatomic (isotopes) to landscape-level (remote sensing). My field sites are mainly located at the ecotone between the temperate and Mediterranean biomes and include both eco- and agro-systems.

​During my PhD thesis (2011-2015), I worked in one of the longest drought experiment in the world, set up in 1999 in a Mediterranean forest in Prades mountains (NE Iberian peninsula). There, I studied how the structure and function of evergreen woody species acclimate to long-term water stress. It was also during my period as a graduate student that I was trained in the use of stable isotopes of water.​ My PhD supervisors were Josep Peñuelas and Romà Ogaya (CREAF), and I learnt a lot from many other people at the Global Change Unit, especially from my beloved friend Monica Mejía-Chang. I also spent some time in the lab of Todd Dawson (University of California, Berkeley) and that of Jordi Volrtas (University of Lleida), in both cases in topics related to water isotopes and ecophysiology.

Shortly after my PhD (2016), I managed to learn dendrochronological techniques, which always captivated me. They allowed me to address scientific questions at longer timescales by analyzing not only radial growth but also the isotopic composition of wood carbon and oxygen.​ During this period I collaborated with Jesús Julio Camarero (IPE-CSIC) and Lena Muffler (Ökologisch-Botanischer Garten Bayreuth).

​Later on (2017-2019), I moved to a temperate region (Bordeaux, France), where I dug deeper in the application of the stable isotopes of water to trace water fluxes along the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. There, I worked closely with Jérôme Ogée, Lisa Wingate (INRAe), and Teresa Gimeno (now at CREAF).

I moved back to Catalonia and joined the University of Barcelona as a research fellow (2019-2024), although I was also involved in teaching activities. I continued working in the previous research lines, but I also started new ones on land-atmosphere feedbacks and mountain forest dynamics.  At UB I worked mostly with Jofre Carnicer, Elisabet Martínez-Sancho, and Santi Sabaté (UB) but also I learnt a lot from Diego Miralles (Ghent University).

Since March 2024, I am a Ramon y Cajal fellow at the Institute for Agrifood Science and Technology (IRTA). There, I began studying water use in woody crops such as vineyards. Particularly, I am interested in finding climate change adapted genotypes as well as management practices to help adapt viticulture to increasing drought.