Maria Pau Ginebra, Eduard Alarcón, Marcel Guardia and Maria Teresa Martínez-Seara receive the 2018 ICREA Acadèmia distinctions
The researchers Maria Pau Ginebra, Eduard Alarcón, Marcel Guardia and Maria Teresa Martínez-Seara standing behind the institutional representatives (first row, left to right: the UPC vice-rector for Science Policy, Gabriel Bugeda; the UPC rector, Francesc Torres; the secretary for Universities and Research, Francesc Xavier Grau; the minister for Business and Knowledge, Àngels Chacón; and the director of the ICREA, Antonio Huerta)
Twenty UPC researchers with an ICREA Acadèmia distinction
The ICREA Acadèmia programme is aimed at teaching and research staff who hold PhDs and are employed by Catalan public universities on a permanent basis, a group that is fully active and expanding their research activity.
Since the first edition of the programme, which was launched in 2008, up to this ninth edition, which began in September 2016, a total of 224 ICREA Acadèmia distinctions have been awarded. There are currently 115 researchers conducting research within the framework of the programme, and 20 of them belong to the UPC.
In the field of engineering sciences there are 14 UPC professors who have been able to intensify their research under the ICREA Acadèmia programme. These are, in addition to Eduard Alarcón and Maria Pau Ginebra (2018), Irene Arias, Albert Cabellos, Ramon Codina and Jordi Martorell (2016), Cristina Masoller, Marino Arroyo, David Carrera and Luis Velasco (2015) and Santiago Badia, Adriano Camps, Antonio González and Jordi Llorca (2014).
In the field of experimental and mathematical sciences, the UPC’s ICREA Acadèmia winners are, in addition to Marcel Guardia Munarriz and Maria Teresa Martínez-Seara (2018), Eva Miranda (2016), Carles Alemán (2015), Romualdo Pastor-Satorras and Juan Pérez Torres (2014).
Current list of ICREA Acadèmia researchers
UPC researchers Maria Pau Ginebra, Eduard Alarcón, Marcel Guardia and Maria Teresa Martínez-Seara are four of the forty-five researchers who received the 2018 ICREA Acadèmia distinctions on 30 April at the Palau de la Generalitat. The event was chaired by the minister for Business and Knowledge, Àngels Chacón, and attended by the minister for Universities and Research, Francesc Xavier Grau, and ICREA director and UPC professor Antonio Huerta.
May 28, 2019
The minister for Business and Knowledge, Àngels Chacón, chaired the award ceremony for the 2018 ICREA Acadèmia distinctions, which took place on 30 April at the Sala Berenguer de Cruïlles of the Palau de la Generalitat (Plaça de Sant Jaume, 4, Barcelona). Thanks to these distinctions, the researchers Maria Pau Ginebra, Eduard Alarcón, Marcel Guardia and Maria Teresa Martínez-Seara of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) will be able to intensify their research over the next five years. They are among the 45 researchers who were awarded a distinction by the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). These awards are worth 40,000 euros per year for the period 2019–2023 and seek to promote and reward excellence among researchers and to retain research talent within the Catalan university system.
The event was attended by the minister for Universities and Research, Francesc Xavier Grau. Antonio Huerta, the director of the ICREA and a UPC professor, delivered a speech and afterwards the ICREA executive director, Emilià Pola, awarded the distinctions to the 45 winners.
In this ninth edition of the programme, which was called in September 2016, a total of 324 applications were received in all areas of knowledge.
Research in engineering sciences and in experimental sciences and mathematics
The UPC researcher Maria Pau Ginebra, one of the winners in the field of engineering sciences, had already received the ICREA Acadèmia award on two previous occasions: in the first edition in 2008 and in the sixth in 2013. Linked to the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, Maria Pau Ginebra will focus her research on the design of biomaterials for bone tissue regeneration by means of biomimetic strategies, that is, inspired by the properties of bone natural components. The idea is to design materials that are capable of interacting with the cells in the human body to direct their functions towards regeneration processes.
Maria Pau Ginebra is the head of the research group in Biomaterials, Biomechanics and Tissue Engineering (BBT) and a member of the Biomedical Engineering Research Centre (CREB) and the Barcelona Research Center in Multiscale Science and Engineering. She is also a professor at the Barcelona East School of Engineering (EEBE) and the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering (ETSEIB).
Eduard Alarcón, who is linked to the UPC’s Department of Electronic Engineering, was also one of the winners in the field of engineering sciences. Alarcón is the head of the research group in Energy Processing and Integrated Circuits (EPIC) and belongs to the Power Electronics Research Centre (PERC-UPC). He is also a professor at the Barcelona School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSETB).
Marcel Guardia Munarriz, who is linked to the Department of Mathematics and a member of the research group in Dynamical Systems (DS), was one of the winners in the field of experimental and mathematical sciences. He is a professor at the Castelldefels School of Telecommunications and Aerospace Engineering (EETAC) and the School of Mathematics and Statistics (FME).
In the same field of experimental and mathematical sciences, Maria Teresa Martínez-Seara, from the Department of Mathematics, was also one of the winners. Martínez-Seara is the head of the UPC’s DS research group and a professor at the FME and the ETSEIB.