My academic trajectory started in 2009 when I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics. I joined the Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center (UPC, Spain). My work focused on two-phase turbulence. The research was funded by a Formación de Profesorado Universitario Scholarship (FPU), which also supported a research stay at University of Groningen (The Netherlands). During my Ph.D., I was the teacher of the Computational Heat and Mass Transfer course, and I helped mentor the work of several Ph.D. candidates. I defended my Ph.D. thesis in July 2014 obtaining an Excellent Cum Laude (European Mention), and resulting in 6 articles, 14 international conferences, and participating in 4 research projects.
In the Fall of 2014 I participated in the highly competitive call for Postdoctoral Research Fellowships of the Center for Turbulence Research (CTR) at Stanford University (USA). I was the candidate selected and I joined the center in 2015 to work with Profs. G. Iaccarino and P. Moin. My research focused on the physics, modeling and computational development of an Exascale-ready multiscale flow framework to study irradiated particle-laden turbulence in solar energy receivers. In parallel, I also worked on developing a model for describing the hydrodynamics of high-pressure flows. This work has been published as a review article in Progress in Energy and Combustion Science (IF: 29.4).
In 2017, I was promoted to Engineering Research Associate at Stanford University, where I continued working on the projects described above by mentoring several Ph.D. students, and on additional topics through collaborations with Prof. A. Doostan (University of Colorado Boulder, USA) and Senior Researcher S. P. Domino (Sandia National Laboratories, USA) on Predictive Science & Engineering in Multiscale Flows and Data Science. In addition, I helped teaching Stanford’s Ph.D. graduate course ME469: Computational Methods in Fluid Mechanics, I participated in the biennial CTR International Summer Program, and I was selected Review Panel Member of the National Science Foundation (NSF, Multiphysics Flow Physics & Modeling Group). In December 2018, I obtained the research accreditation from the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU, Spain).
From 2020 to 2024, I was a Beatriz Galindo Junior Professor & Researcher [Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain, (Distinguished Researcher, BGP18/00026)] in the Department of Fluid Mechanics at UPC, where I taught courses on Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics and Transport Phenomena, and I led research and collaborated on topics related to Multiscale Fluid Mechanics, Data Science, UQ and Computational Science & Engineering with applications to advanced energy, propulsion & transportation systems, biomedical applications, and manufacturing technology.
In January 2022, I was granted an ERC Starting Grant 2022-2027 [Turbulence-On-a-Chip: Supercritically Overcoming the Energy Frontier in Microfluidics (SCRAMBLE-10104037)]. The project focuses on achieving turbulent flow regimes at microfluidic conditions by means of utilizing supercritical fluids, and it involves theoretical, experimental, and computational research. The scientific insight obtained will be leveraged to propose and design improved microfluidic energy solutions and systems. In addition, I participate in different research projects, funded by the Spanish National Research Agency (AEI), related to estimating the distribution of microplastics in turbulent marine systems (as PI, TED2021-132623A-I00) and developing machine learning strategies to reconstruct and predict turbulent flows (as PI, PID2023-150840OA-I00), and utilizing microfluidics to wirelessly interact with microorganisms (as work package leader, PDC2022-133091-I00).
Finally, in January 2023, I obtained the Spanish Research Certificate I3 (I3/2021/0189), and I transitioned to tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Fluids Mechanics at UPC in January 2024.