Marta ALCALAMarta Alcalá Álvarez was born in Barcelona in 1992. She graduated from the Escola Universitària d’Enginyeria Tècnica Industrial de Barcelona (EUETIB) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in 2014, obtaining the degree of Biomedical Engineer. She spent the last semester of the degree developing her final project on the effects of sleep deprivation on electroencephalographic signals using the transfer entropy.

After graduation, she spent 6 months working as an intern Software Developer at Roche Diagnostics.

Most recently, she was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Her main research interests are biomedical signal processing and bioinformatics. She likes music and cinema and enjoys cooking and travelling.

 

Hugo DOMINGUEZHugo Dominguez Marzo was born in Barcelona in 1991. In June 2014, he graduated from UPC’s Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB), obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology Engineering with specialization in mechanics. During his junior year, he was a member of the “ETSEIB-MotorSport” team designing and manufacturing the wings of a racing car with the objective of competing at the Formula Student circuit. During his last year of bachelor, he worked for SEAT, S.A., a Spanish automotive company where he assign the different engines into several countries of the world depending in its features.

In September 2014, he started a Master’s in Industrial Engineering at UPC. He is pursuing an M.S. degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC Irvine with partial support from the Balsells fellowship program. His research interests are in engineering design and robotics.

He enjoys traveling and playing sports in general such as soccer, tennis or surfing.

 

Arnau FRANCIArnau Francí Rodon was born in Barcelona in 1990. He holds a degree in Physics from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) with a specialization in Applied Physics.

Throughout his undergraduate years, Arnau performed different internships. During part of his sophomore and junior year, he worked at the Technologies Area of the UB administrating UNIX based servers. In the summer of 2013, he received a fellowship from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) to develop lab-on-a-chip microfluidic devices for fluorescence microscopy. Later in the same year, he was granted a JAE-Intro CSIC fellowship to conduct a research at the National Center of Microelectronics (IMB-CNM) focusing on Memristors’ characterization. In 2014, Arnau was bestowed a Balsells Mobility Award to conduct his Senior Project in the Mechanical and Aerospace (MAE) Department of the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Under the guidance of Professor Thanasis Sideris, he explored the potential of merging Reinforcement Learning algorithms with Sparse Distributed Memories.

In 2015 he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies at UCI, where he is  in the MAE Department in the field of Controls. Until the beginning of the 2015-2016 academic year he worked as a junior consultant at the Everis-NTT Data Consulting Group.

His main research interests are Energy Optimization, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

 

Adriana LLADOAdriana Lladó Gambín was born in Igualada in 1991. In June 2015, she graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial i Aeronàutica de Terrassa (ETSEIAT) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), obtaining the degree of Aeronautical Engineer.

From September 2014 to June 2015, she completed her senior project at the University of California Irvine, where she did research in the Lasers, Flames and Aerosols (LFA) laboratory in thin-filament pyrometry in a methane/air water-laden counterflow flame. She presented her work in the US National Combustion Meeting in Cincinnati in May 2015.

In the summer of 2015, she was awarded a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department and partial Balsells fellowship. Her research interests are combustion and heat transfer.

She enjoys travelling, camping and playing the piano.

 

Claudia LopezClaudia-Francisca López Cámara was born in Reus in 1991. In August 2014, she graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Química (ETSEQ) of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV),majoring in Chemical Engineering. In September 2014, she received the fellowship ‘Beca Màster d’Excel·lència’ from the ‘Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera’ to pursue her MS in Nanoscience, Materials and Processes at URV. She received her master’s in September 2015.

During the summer of 2012, she worked for BASF SONATRACH PropanChem as intern engineer at the Propane Dehydrogenation plant. In the fall of 2013, she worked in the Chemistry Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTQC) at the Membrane and Process Engineering Technology Centre (METEOR) as a junior researcher.

From February to August 2014, she received a Balsells Mobility Award to complete her senior project (PFC) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where she did research on micro fluids under the mentorship of Professor Roger Rangel. From February to September 2015, she pursued her Master Thesis at UCI, researching on simulation of combustion processes under the mentorship of Professor Derek Dunn-Rankin.

Claudia rejoined UCI in the fall of 2015 as a graduate student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Her research interests are combustion and synthesis of nanomaterials.

In her spare time, she enjoys playing piano, singing and travelling.

 

Nil MAMANONil Mamano Grande was born in Barcelona in 1992.  From February to July 2015, he received a Balsells Mobility award to conduct his senior project at the University of California Irvine under the guidance of Professor Wayne Hayes. He developed an algorithm for network alignment between biological networks.

In July 2015, he graduated from Facultat d’Informàtica de Barcelona (FIB), majoring in Computer Science. He also worked there as Research Assistant under the guidance of Professor Guillem Godoy during 2014.

In the summer of 2015, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue his PhD in Computer Science at the University of California Irvine.

He enjoys playing guitar, riding bikes, and running.

 

Gerard MARULLGerard Marull Paretas was born in Corçà (Girona) in 1990. In 2013, he graduated from UPC’s Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicacions de Barcelona (ETSETB), obtaining a degree in Telecommunications Engineering.

During his studies, he had the opportunity to gain experience in the AntennaLab at UPC and the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO).  In 2013, he spent 9 months doing his Project at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) located in Munich. He worked under the supervision of Paco Lopez-Dekker, a 1997 Balsells fellow, and, as part of the graduation project, he implemented a full-featured simulator for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) applications on ocean currents estimation.

After graduating, he spent almost two years working in industry. He worked first at TomTom and later at Imagination Technologies, both located in the London area (UK). He did a broad range of tasks during this period, including embedded software development, design and implementation of sensor calibration algorithms, as well as assist with production of consumer electronics products.

In 2015, Gerard was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue an M.S. and PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are in the field of electromagnetics (RF applications), signal processing, data visualization and high performance computing.

He enjoys cooking, reading, traveling and doing nature related activities.

 

Andreu MINOBAS

Andreu Minobas Llenas was born in Palafrugell (Girona) in 1991. In 2013, he graduated from Escola Politècnica Superior (EPS) of University of Girona, obtaining a bachelor degree in Industrial Electronics and Automation.

He has previous international experience, as he had lived in Darmstadt (Germany) for 6 months before completing his degree. There, he conducted his senior project at the Power Electronics Department. He developed an educational platform where students had to be able to experiment with different characteristics and signals of continuous current converters.

After completing his degree, he started to work in Totmatic Girona, SL., where he had previously conducted his internship. His main task in the company was programming and setting up automation and control systems in a wide variety of fields such as slaughterhouses, water treatment plants, food industries or producers of isolation material.

In 2015, Andreu was awarded a Balsells (EPS-UdG) Fellowship to pursue a MS in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are power electronics and circuits design.

He enjoys travelling, playing sports, outdoor activities, and hanging out with friends.

 

Octavi OBIOLSOctavi Obiols Sales was born in Barcelona in 1992. In 2014, he graduated from UPC’s Escola Tècnica i Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial i Aeronàutica de Terrassa (ETSEIAT), obtaining a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering. He was part of the “Trencalòs Team”, collaborating in the aerodynamic design of a cargo radio-controlled aircraft to take part in the worldwide academic competition Air Cargo Challenge. After graduating, he started the Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering at ETSEIAT, as the natural continuation of his undergraduate studies. He also joined the CTTC group in Terrassa, collaborating with the department in Fluid Dynamics’ problems resolution.

In the summer of 2015, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue an MS degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are aerodynamics, numerical aerodynamics and aeroelasticity.

He enjoys playing spending time with friends, playing soccer, traveling and pursuing new goals.

 

Adrian ReyAdrián Rey Rodríguez was born in Castellón de la Plana in 1990. He was admitted in the CFIS (Centre de Formació Multidisciplinar Superior) double degree program and obtained degrees in Mathematics and Civil Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), both in 2015.

From September 2014 to February 2015, he received a Balsells Mobility award to conduct his senior project in Civil Engineering at the University of California Irvine, where he developed an innovative vehicle trajectory estimation method under the advice of Professor Wenlong Jin.

During the summers of 2012 and 2015, Adrián worked as an intern for two different analytic consulting companies, Accenture-Neo Metrics and Arcvi. In these internships, he implemented and applied advanced machine learning algorithms to improve a wide range of business processes.

In the summer of 2015, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue an MS degree in Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

In his spare time, he enjoys travelling, playing soccer and hanging out with friends.

 

Oriol RiuOriol Riu Martinez was born in Barcelona in 1992. In july 2014, he graduated from UPC’s Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB), obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Engineering in Industrial Technology. He conducted his undergraduate senior project at the Laboratoire Sols-Solides-Structures-Risques (3SR Lab), a solid mechanics laboratory of the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble, where he studied the mechanical behavior of entangled monofilaments made up of different wire materials.

In the summer of 2013, he worked for Max Plàstic S.A., a Catalan company dedicated to the thermoplastic parts manufacture by injection, as a mechanical and electrical maintenance engineer. In the summer of 2014, Oriol worked for Masella (TTADUSA), a Catalan Ski Resort, elaborating a study of the social and economic impact of this ski resort on its region. He also has teaching experience since 2012, when he started working at the ASES academy (in Barcelona), tutoring ETSEIB Industrial Engineering students.

In September 2014, Oriol started a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering at ETSEIB. In June 2015, Oriol was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue an MS degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are mechanical design and solid mechanics.

He enjoys playing any kind of sports and outdoor activities, travelling, playing the piano and learning new languages.

 

Marina ZamudioMarina Zamudio Domingo was born in Banyoles (Girona) in 1993. In July 2015, she graduated in Chemical Engineering from Escola Politècnica Superior (EPS) of the University of Girona with a senior project on the interaction between gold nanoparticles and nanopaper.

During her junior year, she was awarded a technology and innovation fellowship (beques de transferència i innovació, BTI) by University of Girona. With this fellowship, she could work as an intern in the thermal analysis department of the university.

In 2015, Marina joined the Balsells Fellowship program with a Biomedical Engineering department  fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Her main research interests are in biomaterials and tissue engineering.

She enjoys travelling, all kind of sports (especially track and field athletics and rugby, which she now plays) and playing the guitar.