Mohamed Benomar El Kati was born in Roses (Girona) in 1997. In June 2019, he graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicació de Barcelona (ETSETB) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications Technologies and Services Engineering.

During the senior year, he did his bachelor’s thesis at the Université de Grenoble – INP (France) under the Erasmus exchange program. He worked on the implementation of the Electrical Power System and telemetry for a nanosatellite.

Back in Barcelona, Mohamed pursuit and obtained a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from ETSETB, UPC. During his master’s degree, Mohamed carried out internships in Ficosa and Idneo Technologies, working on remarkable projects for the automotive and industrialization sectors.

In 2021, he was granted a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to pursue her master’s thesis at the University of California, Irvine. He worked under Professor Hung Cao, where they designed a device capable of detecting the identity of a person based on electroencephalogram (EEG) reading and processing them using Machine Learning algorithms.

After graduating from the master’s degree in 2022, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue his PhD in Electrical Engineering at the department Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the University of California, Irvine. His main research interests are electronic devices, embedded systems and biomedical technology.

Mohamed is passionate about traveling, motorcycles, sports and cooking. He has played basketball for years and currently enjoys playing pickleball.

Guillem Cornella i Barba was born in Barcelona in 1998. In June 2020, he received his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Electronics and Automatic Control Engineering from the Escola d’Enginyeria Barcelona Est (EEBE-UPC). He was awarded the first prize for the best high-school project at UPC, which consisted in designing a 3d-printed prosthetic arm that could be operated with a simple EEG device.

During the first semester of his senior year (2019), he received a Minor degree in Entrepreneurship and Technology from the Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Eindhoven, Netherlands. During the last semester, he was awarded a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to conduct his Bachelor’s thesis at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He joined the group of Professor Leslie Tekamp at the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to develop a Wi-Fi remote-controlled car commanded by a C# application.

In 2022, he received his MS in Automatic Control and Robotics from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB-UPC). He conducted his master’s final thesis alongside BitMetrics, a Deep-Tech Startup developing computer vision software for bin-picking applications. Right after that, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine in the BioRobotics Laboratory. His main research interests are neuro-rehabilitation systems, computer vision, and robotics.

Guillem enjoys practicing sports like handball and pickleball in his spare time. He is also very passionate about gastronomy and traveling.

Pau Fradera i Soler was born in Barcelona in 1997. He graduated from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC – Barcelona Tech) in Mechanical Engineering in 2020, being awarded for the best GPA among the students graduating in 2020 at UPC’s Escola d’Enginyeria Barcelona Est (EEBE). During the last year of his BSc, he was awarded the Balsells Mobility Fellowship to spend six months at the University of California Irvine conducting research on modelling of plasma actuators for flow control, under the guidance of Professor Feng Liu.

Later on, he was awarded the TU Delft Excellence Scholarship 2020-2022 to pursue the Mechanical Engineering MSc (Energy, Flows and Processes track) at Technische Universiteit Delft (TU Delft – Delft University of Technology). Moreover, during his MSc thesis work, he had the chance of conducting research on dispersion of pollutants in urban environments by performing computational simulations of the atmospheric turbulent boundary layer.

Currently, he is pursuing his PhD degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California Irvine as a Balsells Graduate Fellow, where he will be working in Professor Perry Johnson’s research group: Physics and Simulation of Turbulence.

Albert Gil Esmendia was born in Sabadell in 1994. In 2017, he graduated from UPC’s Escola Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial, Aeronàutica I Audiovisual de Terrassa (ESEIAAT, Barcelona), obtaining a BSc degree in Industrial Technology Engineering. After that, he started his master’s degree and collaborated with GRIC and LEAM research groups, in ESEIAAT.

In 2018, Albert was awarded a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to conduct his master’s thesis “Feasibility study of zero emissions large ships using hydrogen and fuel cell systems” at the University of California, Irvine, advised by Professor Jacob Brouwer and working within Advanced Power and Energy Program research group.

In 2019 Albert graduated from ESEIAAT, obtaining an MSc in Industrial Engineering, focusing on electrical engineering and renewable energies. He then joined IDOM, an engineering company based in Spain, developing tasks of electrical and renewable energies design and implementation and project management for a bast variety of engineering projects.

In 2022, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, working again under the supervision of Professor Jacob Brouwer. His main research topics will be hydrogen and fuel cells, and its integration within the electrical power grid.

In his spare time, he enjoys playing basketball, hiking, travelling and photography.

Lois Meira López was born in Santiago de Compostela in 1999. He graduated from UPC´s Escola Superior d’Enginyeries Industrial, Aeronàutica i Audiovisual de Terrassa (ESEIAAT) in June 2021, obtaining a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering.

Parallel to his undergraduate studies, Lois collaborated with UPC’s Lightning Research Group on active lightning mitigation for aircraft, with the development of a logging platform for the surveying aircraft. During his senior year, he was an international student at Linköping University (LiU) in Linköping, Sweden. At LiU’s FLUMES research group he wrote his Bachelor’s thesis on the logging electronics of subscale flight testing (SFT) aircraft. His thesis was based on the implementation of high-speed multi-servo position logging using off-the-shelf hardware.

In 2022, Lois 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 include electronics, control algorithm implementation and product development.

In his spare time, he enjoys playing pickleball, cooking, traveling and taking photos.

Blanca Romero Milà was born in Vilafranca del Penedès (Barcelona) in 2000. In 2022, she received her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Universitat de Barcelona (UB).

In 2019, she carried out an internship at BCN3D in the I+D department, where she was part of the team developing a new 3D printing technology for future medical applications. In 2020, she interned at Hospital maternoinfantil San Joan de Déu (Barcelona) in the Infrastructures and Biomedical Engineering Department. She worked as a clinical engineer developing projects in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and the Department of Neurology. During this internship, she discovered her passion for neurology.

During her Bachelor studies, Blanca has been an active member of the Young IT Girls, a non-profit organization that aims to bring the STEM fields closer to girls and boys from diverse backgrounds. Their primary focus consists of going to schools and high schools doing various activities and games related to STEM fields and showing students that anyone can be part of the STEM field.

During the last semester of her senior year (2022), she was awarded a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to conduct her bachelor’s thesis at the University of California, Irvine. She joined Dr. Lopour’s group at the Laboratory of Translational and Computational Neuroscience in the Biomedical Engineering Department. For her thesis, she studied the brain connectivity of children progressing between two different types of severe infantile epilepsy. With this project, her bachelor’s thesis was awarded high honors. She has been selected to represent the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) at the Annual Competition of Biomedical Engineering Degrees of the Sociedad Española de Ingeniería Biomédica (CASEIB-2022). Her thesis will also be presented as a poster at the CHOC’s Research Day and at the American Epilepsy Society (AES) 2022 Annual Meeting. Further, during this semester, she published a review paper on EEG biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of infantile spasms.

In 2022, Blanca was awarded the Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She continues her research with Dr. Lopour’s group. She studies high-frequency oscillations (HFOs), a potential electroencephalogram high-frequency biomarker for infantile epilepsy. In her spare time, she enjoys playing the flute, reading, doing archery, and traveling.

Paula Simó Higueras was born in Mallorca (Illes Balears) in 2000. She graduated from UPC’s Escola d’Enginyeria Barcelona Est (EEBE-UPC) in 2022, obtaining her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering. During the summer of her junior year, she did an internship at the Radio Physics Department of Hospital Universitari Son Espases in Mallorca and, throughout her first semester as a senior student, she conducted part of her studies at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (Sweden), where she discovered new ways to face medical issues.

During her second semester as a senior student, she was awarded a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to pursue her Bachelor’s thesis at the University of California, Irvine. She worked with Professor Voloshina and Professor Reinkensmeyer. She conducted her research on gait exploration with haptic feedback assistance. She developed a proof of concept to create a device that could improve clinical rehabilitation by helping people with disabilities explore their motor control pathways and more effectively adapt to novel tasks.

In 2022, she was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at University of California, Irvine. She works in Professor Voloshina’s Rehabilitation and Augmentation Lab. Her main research interests are overcoming the limitations of people with lower-limb motor impairment by analyzing the biomechanics of their human movement and improving gait rehabilitation training protocols.

In her spare time, Paula loves spending time in nature and being surrounded by nice people. Currently, she also enjoys singing in the choir and playing pickleball with her friends.

Joan Vendrell Gallart was born in Ordal (Barcelona) in 1997. He graduated with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from UPC’s Escola Superior d’Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona in 2019 and he obtained the master’s degree in industrial engineering specialized in Automatics and Controls in the same school in 2022.

Since the end of his bachelor’s, he has been working in research in Institut de Robòtica Industrial i Informàtica (Barcelona) involved in several problems related to Machine Learning for Natural Language Processing, stochastic modelling of physical systems and Social Analysis.

In 2021, Joan was awarded a Balsells Mobility Fellowship to finish his master thesis in Professor Kia’s Cooperative Lab in the Mechanical and Aerospasce Department of The University of California, Irvine, developing a quantum-inspired algorithm for submodular maximization problems. After this first time in UCI, Joan worked as a Full-stack software developer in 011h (Barcelona) for some months.

In 2022, he was awarded a Balsells Graduate Fellowship to pursue his PhD in Dynamics and Control under the supervision of Prof. Solmaz Kia.

In his spare time Joan enjoys listening to music, hang out with friends, cooking and go to the gym or practice sports, mainly soccer and tennis.

Sylvain Walsh was born in New York City in 1999 but grew up in Barcelona. In 2021, he graduated from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya’s (UPC) School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering of Terrassa (ESEIAAT), receiving a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering.

During his senior year he carried out a 6-month internship at Montagen & Kabeltechnik, a cable manufacturing company. There he worked as a production engineer developing cable assemblies for industrial 3D printers. His Bachelor’s thesis consisted of the design and construction of a model vertical landing rocket using a cold gas thruster as a means of propulsion.

In late 2021 he started the first year of a Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering at ESEIAAT. There he joined Cosmic Research, a student research association which designs solid rocket motors and sounding rockets. Throughout his time at the association, he participated in the development of the avionics modules for sounding rockets used in the European Space Agency’s CANSAT competition.