fellows2013_SusanaSusana Anacleto Lupiáñez was born in Barcelona (Catalonia) in 1985. In July 2009, she graduated from UPC’s Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyers de Camins, Canals i Ports de Barcelona (ETSECCPB), obtaining the degree of Civil Engineer. She has previous international academic experience, as she studied her senior academic year in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CiTG) of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), in the Netherlands, between September 2007 and June 2008. In July 2008, she started an internship at COMSA EMTE, a renowned Catalan construction company, where she conducted her thesis, in the framework of a cooperation agreement between the company and the university. Her research was focused on the modeling of the track-tramway Interaction. Her master’s thesis earned a national award and was published in a monthly national journal on the new technologies and innovations in the Spanish railway. Although she did not pursue the specialization in structural engineering, she redirected her career to this field when she was hired by COMSA EMTE to work as a Structural Engineer in the technical department of the company, from September 2009 to September 2013. In 2013, she was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue an MS degree in Structural Engineering at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering of the University of California, Irvine. Her main research interest is Earthquake Engineering. She enjoys hiking and travelling.

 

fellows2013_DavidDavid Butinyà i Teixidó was born in Banyoles in 1986. In 2009, he graduated from the Escola Politècnica Superior of The University of Girona, obtaining a degree in Industrial Engineering. In 2009, he received a fellowship from “Fundació la Caixa” to pursue an MS in Mathematical Engineering at the Carlos III University, in Madrid. He focused his research on Modeling and Numerical Simulation. During the Master’s degree, he spent three months at Duke University (North Carolina) as a visiting scholar. He graduated in 2011. From October 2011 to September 2013, he worked as a mechanical and testing engineer for Hewlett-Packard at its Large-Format Printing Division, in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona. In 2013, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue an MS in Engineering Management at the University of California, Irvine. David enjoys technology, travelling and cinema.

 

fellows2013_VictorVictor De Los Santos Bernad was born in Barcelona in 1988. In July of 2009, he completed his Navigation Systems Degree from the Escola Tècnica Superior de Castelldefels (EPSC-UPC). Later on, he enrolled in the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial i Aeronàutica de Terrassa (ETSEIAT-UPC), where he graduated in July 2012 as an Aeronautical Engineer. He moved to London that September to start an MSc in Computer Science at the Birkbeck University of London which he successfully completed in September 2013. He participated in the ICARUS project in Castelldefels, developing a flight surface monitoring system for UAVs and its safety assessment. For his senior project for the Aeronautical Engineering degree, he received a Balsells Mobility award at the University of California Irvine to work under the mentorship of Professor Lizhi Sun doing stress analysis of delamination and crack effects on solid-fuel rockets. His master’s project consisted of an automatic file downloader extension for the Google Chrome browser. In the summer of 2013, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue PhD studies in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main interests of research are in control, systems design and air traffic management. In his spare time, he enjoys playing the guitar, singing, acting, cooking and travelling.

 

mfellows2012_AnnaAnna Güell Izard was born in Sabadell in 1987. She graduated in technical marine engineering from the Facultat de Nàutica de Barcelona (FNB) in 2008 and in structural engineering in the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB-UPC) in 2013. During her last two years at ETSEIB, she worked at the department of strength of materials of her school, analyzing the buckling of thin walled steel beams and helping students to do finite element simulations. From September of 2012 to April of 2013, Anna received a Balsells Undergraduade Mobility award to conduct her senior project at the University of California Irvine with Professor Lorenzo Valdevit. Her research was focused in finding the optimal geometry of a hybrid lattice to maximize the energy absorption. In 2013 Anna was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests are strength of materials, structures and finite elements simulations. She likes cinema, music, playing the guitar, sailing and skiing.

 

fellows2013_AdrianAdrián Ortega Novillo was born in Figueres (Girona) in 1987. In 2011, he graduated from the Escola Politècnica Superior of the University of Girona, obtaining a degree in Industrial Engineering. Later in 2012, he received a Master of Science degree in Mechanics of Materials and Structures, also from the University of Girona. From January 2012 to September 2013, he was a member of the Analysis and Advanced Materials in Structural Design Research Group of the University of Girona. His research was focused on Fracture Mechanics, specifically in determining the cohesive law of quasi-brittle materials. In the summer of 2013, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a PhD degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interest is in Solid Mechanics. He loves cinema, travelling and hanging out with his friends.

 

fellows2013_IreneIrene Rodriguez Alegre was born in Barcelona in 1987. She received her Telecommunications Engineering degree from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2011, she studied at University of Surrey (United Kingdom) on an Erasmus exchange, getting involved in the fields of space and satellite remote sensing. That summer she worked on the Centre for Communication Systems Research at Surrey. Later that year, she was accepted by the Education Abroad Program to study at The University of California, Santa Cruz, where she pursued her final thesis research in “Vessel detection using HF radar”. In 2012, she was selected by the European Space Agency to work in the SMOS Satellite Calibration team, her mission being the “Detection of Radio Frequency Interferences from SMOS Polarimetric Data”. In the summer of 2013, she was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies at the University of California Irvine, where she is a Master’s student in the EECS department focusing on Image and Data Processing. Her main research interest is Satellite Remote Sensing. She has worked as a sailing instructor for 6 years in Barcelona. Her main hobbies are travelling the world, dancing, sailing and windsurfing.

 

mfellows2012_JoanSantacanaJoan Santacana Vall was born in Lleida in January 1989. In 2010, he obtained the mechanical engineering degree from the Escola Politècnica Superior of the Universitat de Lleida. He pursued his senior project at the VIA University College in Horsens (Denmark) with an Erasmus scholarship. After finishing his first degree, he enrolled the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial i Aeronàutica de Terrassa (ETSEIAT) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, where he graduated in April 2013 as an Industrial Engineer. He conducted his senior project at University of California Irvine with a Balsells Mobility award, where he did research in automated measurement in a methane hydrate flame. In 2012 he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship in order to pursue his MS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His hobbies are playing soccer, travelling and hanging out with friends.