Miquel Baltà Manich was born in Barcelona in 1994. In 2016, he graduated from UPC’s Escola Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial, Aeronàutica i Audiovisual de Terrassa (ESEIAAT-Barcelona-Spain), obtaining a B.S. degree in Industrial Technology Engineering. After graduating, he completed the first year of the Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering at ETSEIAT, as a continuation of his undergraduate studies.
Apart from his studies at UPC, he obtained the National Higher Certificate in Aeronautics from Glyndwr University in Wales in 2014. His research was about Horizontal Stabilizers Protectors for light planes.
During his bachelor’s degree (2016), Miquel was awarded with a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to work on “Flapping Wing Mechanisms for Micro Air Vehicles” at the University of California, Irvine. Moreover, he was appointed as Project Manager of the FWMAV project and as a result of the research, he co-wrote the paper “Design and Manufacturing of Flapping Wing Mechanisms for Micro Air Vehicles”, which was presented at the 58th conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), in Grapevine, Texas, 2017.
In 2017, Miquel was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue the MS degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main interests are control, robotics, design and manufacturing. Moreover, his research continues to be about “Flapping Wing Mechanisms for Micro Air Vehicles”.
He enjoys travelling, reading, and practicing sports, specially hiking and surfing.
Jaume Bartolí Ramon was born in Santa Coloma de Queralt (Tarragona) in 1995. He graduated from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) in 2017, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering.
During his junior year, he worked as a software engineering intern at SIBEL SAU, a medical-device company based in Barcelona. Afterwards, he studied at Trinity College Dublin on an Erasmus exchange and performed research for the ReillyLab. There he worked on the development of a clinical tool for measuring spatial sound localization abilities in cochlear implant users. Towards the completion of his degree, he conducted his senior project at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), developing a microfluidic sensing device for electrical analysis of cells.
In 2017, Jaume was awarded the Balsells Fellowship to pursue an MS degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are biomedical microelectromechanical systems (bioMEMS) and neural engineering, and he is passionate about biomedical innovation and translational medicine. In his spare time, he enjoys going to concerts, hiking, running and travelling.
Ivan Martinez I Cano was born in Barcelona in 1994. In 2016, he graduated from UPC’s Escola Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial, Aeronàutica i Audiovisual de Terrassa (ESEIAAT), obtaining a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering. After graduating, he completed the first year of the Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering at ETSEIAT, as a continuation of his undergraduate studies.
Apart from his studies at UPC, he was awarded in 2016 with a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to pursue his Bachelor’s Thesis in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. During his Bachelor’s Thesis, he worked as Junior Researcher with Professor Ken Mease, helping in the study of high elevation landing on Mars.
In 2017, Ivan was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are aerodynamics, astrodynamics, control and robotics. He enjoys practicing all kind of sports, play augmented reality video games and travelling.
Irene Martinez was born in Barcelona in 1992. She finished her undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering in 2014 at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in the ETSECCPB. During her senior year, she had the opportunity to study at the Eidgenisische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland as a part of the Erasmus program. At ETH Zurich she worked on her Bachelor’s thesis, focused on transportation, analyzing the effect of different speed limits in traffic performance and homogeneity. Her BSc thesis was developed under the advice of Prof. Monica Menendez (ETH) and Prof. Francesc Soriguera (UPC) and in 2015 Irene obtained the 1st National and International Prize of the Abertis research contest in the BSc and MSc category.
Before continuing her studies at ETSECCPB, Irene worked for 6 months as a structural engineer intern at Dr. Luechinger+Meyer in Zurich and later as a research associate at CENIT (Centre d’Inovacio del Transport) for 5 months in Barcelona. There, she extended her research about the influence of low-speed limits on traffic flow. Her research further led to the publication of a paper in the journal Transportation Research Part C in collaboration with her advisors and a colleague.
In 2015 Irene decided to study the Master in Civil Engineering with majors in Structural Engineering at ETSECCPB. During 2016 she had the opportunity to work as an intern at ESTEYCO S.A.P., during 11 months, where she could implement and deepen her knowledge in structural engineering taking part on several national and international projects. Also in 2016, Irene was awarded a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to develop her Master Thesis in the field of Transportation Systems at the University of California, Irvine, in the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) during spring and summer quarters of 2017. Her research was focused in the location of control strategies with speed limits to reduce capacity drop effects on bottlenecks and was supervised by Prof. Wen-Long Jin. The results of her thesis were summarized in a paper called “Optimal location of Variable Speed Limit application areas”, which has been accepted for presentation at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. in January 2018.
In 2017 Irene has decided to continue her studies at University of California, Irvine and has been awarded with the Balsells Gaduate Fellowship to pursue her PhD under the direction of Prof. Jin. Her research interests are transportation systems, technology innovation to improve traffic flow and transit design networks. She also enjoys dancing, traveling, cooking and playing the piano.
David Morata Carranza was born in Móra la Nova in 1994. He graduated from Escola Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial, Aeroespacial i Audiovisual de Terrassa (ESEIAAT) in 2017, obtaining a degree in Aerospace Engineering. During his last two years, he was an active member of the Terrassa Rocket Team.
His Bachelor’s thesis consisted in the development of a code to solve mass, momentum and energy equations and programming an LES code to compute an incompressible adiabatic chamber.
In 2017, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are aerodynamics, aeroacoustics and sustainability. He enjoys travelling and playing the bass guitar and the piano. He recorded an album in Metropolis Studios, London, in 2011 and played in the Spanish National TV (TVE) during the Cibeles Fashion Week.
Efrén Villanueva Bonay was born in Barcelona in 1994. In September 2016, he graduated from Escola Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial, Aerospacial i Audiovisual de Terrassa (ESEIAAT) of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) obtaining a B.S. degree in Aerospace Technology Engineering. During his undergraduate studies, he spent 6 months in the Polytechnic University of Warsaw working on his Bachelor’s Thesis as an international student. After graduating, he completed the first year of the Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the ESEIAAT.
His Bahcelor’s Thesis consisted in studying the wake flow behind a disk inside a water tunnel by using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique. While doing the first year of the Master’s Degree, he started working as an assistant at the Aerospace Engineering Department of the ESEIAAT. During that time, he continued his research using the PIV technique with a wind tunnel as well as studying drone’s propellers performance.
In 2017, he was awarded with a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are Fluid Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics. He enjoys travelling, reading and hanging out with friends.