Short-Bio

Almost since I learned how to program (as a part of my Bachelor studies in Civil Engineering), I have been involved in a specific field of Computer Science known as Competitive Programming. I joined the ECI programming competitions group, named ECIGMA, and started participating in local programming competitions in Colombia in order to qualify to the Regional and World Finals of ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. Miguel Romero, Carlos Pinzón and I participated as team ECIGMA Alpha for several years in representation of ECI and achieved the 4th place in XXIX Maraton Nacional de Programacion ACIS REDIS and the 7th place in The 2015 ACM-ICPC South America-North Finals.

As I was studying Civil Engineering Bachelor, I was awarded a scholarship by the Young Engineers Germany 2012-2013 Program. Therefore, I studied for 1 semester at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) and made an internship semester at an independent consulting firm in the road construction sector, and management of urbanism, aqueduct and sewage projects. Just before that internship, I developed a software solution for inventory control, Mise-en-gard, sales and production statistics and forecast and management for a small restaurant chain in Bogotá using Visual Basic and a SQL database. 

I received once (in 2014-1) the Academic Excelence Scholarship. I graduated with the best score in my Bachelor studies at that time, so I earned a Scholarship to study a Master Degree in Civil Engineering at the ECI, which I started in 2015. Furthermore, I also started as a teaching assistant of some classes (labs of Pipe Hydraulics and Channel Hydraulics) at the Hydraulics Studies Center of ECI.

There was a call for a Full-time Instructor (non-doctoral teacher) in Hydraulics at ECI and I applied for it, so from 2016 to 2018 I worked as such. In the meanwhile, I struggled to finish my M.Sc. Thesis and to accomplish all tasks that my position as Instructor required, such as student mentoring, administrative tasks and lecturing (e.g. Fluid Mechanics, Pipe Hydraulics, Water Supply and Sanitation in Buildings, Computational tools for Civil Engineering - MS Excel and EPANET modules). In the meantime, I developed another software, this time in VB.NET, for the hydraulics lab, in order to guide the labs and computations of the hydraulics lab practices.

At the end of 2018, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the OMICAS program opened an Economic Support Plan for Students in order to start a Ph.D. in Engineering. I applied for it and started a Doctorate in Engineering and Computer Sciences, with applications in Biology, in January 2019. During this doctorate journey, I have written 2 peer-reviewed research articles, coded a bunch of software scripts and tools (mostly Python and R) and assisted to some national and international conferences. 

From September 2022 to January 2023 I was in an internship in the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf, more specifically at the Institute for Quantitative and Theoretical Biology, as part of my research and Thesis preparation.

Finally, from August 2023 up to August 2024 and because of my proficiency in German, I worked in Berlitz Colombia as Instructor of the German Language (A1-B2) for nursing staff who want to migrate to Germany, using proprietary methods and several learning materials.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicol%C3%A1s-antonio-l%C3%B3pez-rozo/

• ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8060-6891

• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicolas-Lopez-Rozo

• OMICAS: https://www.omicas.co/investigadores/nicolas-lopez

• CvLAC: https://scienti.minciencias.gov.co/cvlac/visualizador/generarCurriculoCv.do?cod_rh=0000116471