Professional Bio

My teaching and research trajectory started when I was finishing a 5-year degree in Mechanical Engineering (Fluid Mechanics specialization) at the Technical University of Catalonia – BarcelonaTech (UPC, Spain) and I was awarded an European Erasmus Scholarship to conduct Master’s Thesis research at the Energy Technology Department of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, Sweden) under the guidance of Prof. T. Fransson. At KTH, I performed experiments to study flow mixing in biomass-based energy conversion and propulsion systems. I also participated in the organization and teaching of the Jet Propulsion Engines Laboratory course as a Teaching Assistant.

After that exciting experience, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics. I joined the Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center (UPC, Spain) to carry out theoretical and computational research in Fluid Mechanics and engineering applications. My work under Prof. A. Oliva’s guidance focused on interfacial hydrodynamics and two-phase turbulent flow. The research was funded by a highly selective Graduate Research and Training Fellowship (FPU - Ministry of Education, Spain), which also supported a research stay at the Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) to work with Profs. A. Veldman and R. Verstappen on modeling multiphase turbulent flows. During my Ph.D., in addition to carrying out research, I was the organizer and Teacher of the graduate-level workshop Computational Heat and Mass Transfer, and I partially mentored the work of several Ph.D. candidates. I defended my Ph.D. thesis in July 2014 obtaining and Excellent Cum Laude (European Doctorate Mention) and resulting in a total of 8 peer-reviewed journal publications, 14 international conference proceedings, and participating in 4 research projects.

In the Fall of 2014 I participated in the highly competitive, international 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 start working on different topics of Fluid Mechanics with Profs. G. Iaccarino and P. Moin. My research, funded by the Department of Energy (DoE, USA), focused on the physics, modeling and computational development of an Exascale-ready, multiphysics flow solver framework to perform predictive, extreme-scale studies of irradiated particle-laden turbulent flow of relevance to state-of-the-art volumetric solar energy receivers. The successful modeling and validation of the computational framework was awarded Early Science Access to the new Sierra supercomputer (ranked 2nd in the World) to study the Fluid Mechanics of multiscale particle motion in irradiated turbulence. In parallel, I also worked with Research Associate Dr. J. Urzay on developing a multiscale model, based on diffuse-interface theory, for describing the interfacial hydrodynamics of high-pressure transcritical flows in atomization processes. The research was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR, USA) and by DoE through a collaboration with the research company Cascade Technologies Inc. (USA). The work has been recently selected to be published as a review article in the highly influential Progress in Energy and Combustion Science.

In 2017, I was promoted to Engineering Research Associate at Stanford University, where I continued working on the projects described above by supervising several Ph.D. students, and on additional topics through collaborations with Prof. A. Doostan (University of Colorado Boulder, USA), Senior Researcher S. P. Domino (Sandia National Laboratories, USA) and Researchers V. Spandan (Harvard University, USA), and P. Roy (CERFACS, France) on Predictive Science & Engineering in Multiphysics Flows, and Data Science Flow Analysis and Reduced-Order Modeling. 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).

Since 2020, I am a Professor & Researcher in the Department of Fluid Mechanics of the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (Spain), where I teach courses on Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics and Transport Phenomena, and I organize/lead research and collaborate on topics related to Multiscale Fluid Mechanics, Data Science, Model Reduction, UQ and Computational Science & Engineering with applications to advanced energy, propulsion & transportation systems, biomedical applications, and manufacturing technology.

In January 2022, it was announced that my ERC Starting Grant 2021 proposal [Turbulence-On-a-Chip: Supercritically Overcoming the Energy Frontier in Microfluidics (SCRAMBLE)] had been selected for funding. The project will focus on achieving turbulent flow regimes at microfluidic conditions by means of utilizing supercritical fluids. The scientific insight obtained will be leveraged to propose and design improved microfluidic energy solutions and systems.