Oriol Español-Bada was born in Mataró (Barcelona) in 1979. He graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in Barcelona, Catalonia, obtaining the degree of Industrial Engineer. During 2002, he was awarded with an Erasmus scholarship to spend six months at the Technische Universität München (TUM) in Germany. His research project was part of a thesis to develop a human-size robotic finger powered by Shape Memory Alloys (www.amm.mw.tu-muenchen.de). In 2003, he worked as a trainee for BMW ( www.bmw.com ) at the Predevelopment Department in the Engineering and Research Center (FIZ) in Munich. His job was to develop a dynamical model of the transmission of a car using a new object-oriented modeling language called Modelica (www.modelica.org). In July 2003, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are in the Control area. He enjoys travelling, learning other languages and playing soccer.
Daniel Massaguer Pla was born in Girona, Catalonia-Spain, in 1979. In 2003, he obtained his degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Girona (UdG). While he was a student at the University of Girona, he enrolled with the Broadband Communications and Distributed Systems ( BCDS ) research group and work with them for 4 years. In addition, he was awarded an ERASMUS fellowship to study at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland-UK during the 2001 winter quarter. In 2003, he was awarded the first “Girona Fellowship” to study towards his MS/PhD degree concentrating in Computer Networks and Distributed Computing at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the University of California, Irvine. He likes traveling and practicing sports such as basketball, snowboarding, and others.
Julius Klein was born on March 9th, 1977 in France, but always lived in Catalunya (Cadaqués and Torroella de Montgrí ). In July 2003 he graduated in Industrial Engineering from the Universitat de Girona (Spain). During the last two summers of his program, he worked as an automaton programmer and prior to this he worked six years for the Torroella de Montgrí town hall sports section as a swimming instructor for children. He also worked six months for the textile company Antex S.A. (Anglès) to reduce their outdoor acoustic contamination level. He is the sound technician and an active member of “Els Ducs”, a group specialized in correfocs (street fire spectacles) and other major events. He is also the sound technician for the theatre group “La Carota teatre”. In July 2003, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research field is Robotics and Control Systems. A part from swimming, he also enjoys rock climbing, trekking, mountain biking, skiing and most recently: surfing! His hobbies are: music (listening, playing and sound controlling), traveling, computers, photography, cooking, and cinema.
José Joaquín Mohedano Robles was born in Barcelona in 1980. In July of 2003, he graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Terrassa (ETSEIT) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in Terrassa, Catalonia, obtaining the degree of Industrial Engineer with a specialization in Electro-Thermal engineering. During 2003, he was awarded an Erasmus scholarship to spend 5 months at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA) France, where he conducted his end-of-studies project. He worked on the digital control and real-time Electro-Thermal monitoring of a power converter, through the implementation of a DSP, at the CEGELY research lab (Centre de Génie Électrique de Lyon) In September 2003, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a Master of Science Degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are in the Control area. He likes traveling, reading (especially science fiction), astronomy, sports and music. He was also a member of the Estudiantina (or “La Tuna”), a Spanish traditional music group, from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) where he played the accordion.
Francesc Serras Marques was born in Girona in 1975. In 2000, he graduated from the Politechnical School at the University of Girona (UdG), obtaining the degree of Industrial Engineer, specializing in the fields of Organization and Structures. From 1998 to 2000, he worked part time at the University of Girona, in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. During his undergraduate degree studies, he spent a year organizing an International Congress for the PRIME network of the European Community and he also founded Solventa6, S.L. – a service company that develops engineering projects, www.solventa6.com – in which he worked for one year. From 2000 to 2003, he worked full time estimating industrial product cost in a multinational automobile company. In July 2003, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a Master of Science Degree in Engineering Transportation Systems at the University of California, Irvine. He likes playing any sport that includes a ball, swimming and diving.
Josep M. Soler Carbonell was born in Canet de Mar (Catalonia, Spain) in 1980. He has been living in Girona since 1987 and graduated from the Escola Politècnica Superior of the University of Girona (UdG) in June 2003, obtaining a degree in Industrial Engineering. His final degree project was: “Fatigue life prediction tool for composite materials using finite elements”. In the summers of 1999 and 2000, he worked as a CAD designer in AUGI (an automation enterprise of Girona). The summer of 2001 he worked in the services and re-packaging department of Hutamaki Van Leer in Portsmouth (England) developing several tasks. From September 2000 to June 2001 he was the data-coordinator of the Avionics team of the UdG in the Sseti project impelled by the European Space Agency ( www.sseti.org ). In September 2001, he had a collaboration contract between the Association of Engineers of Catalonia and the University, in order to become a member of the administration department of the Association for one year. In December 2002, he received a scholarship from the Spanish Government to join the Physics department of the University of Girona to elaborate an on-line manual for a finite elements code called PLCd2. In July 2002, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a Master of Science Degree in Fluid Dynamics at the University of California, Irvine. His research interest is Applied Mathematics. He is very interested in modern music and plays the piano at amateur level. He is also a “casteller” in the local group of Girona ( www.marrecs.org ) and was “cap de colla” in the University Group Xoriguers ( www.xoriguers.tk ).