March 2006: Balsells Fellow Francisco Lopez Dekker joins UPC as a Ramon y Cajal researcher.

Francisco (Paco) Lopez Dekker (1997 Balsells Fellow) has joined the Signal Theory and Communications Department at the Politechnical University of Catalonia (UPC) as a Ramon y Cajal Researcher. The Ramon y Cajal program is oriented at incorporating distinguished researchers holding a Ph.D. degree into Spain’s research institutions. Awards are granted based on the candidates trajectory and the proposed research project. The grant covers most of the researcher’s salary during a five year period and provides some funding to start the project. At UPC, Dr. Lopez Dekker will investigate bi-static Synthetic Aperture Radar techniques aimed at monitoring land movements. Paco is a 1997 Balsells Fellowhip recepient. After completing a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCI, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2002. In 2003 he returned to Barcelona to work at Starlab and in September 2004, he joined the Autonomous University of Barcelona as a visiting professor.