Research News

Candidate Yu Yin defended his thesis co-directed by Guillermo González and Angela Aragon-Angel on March 3 at Campus Nord. Titled "Innovative Contributions to Ionospheric Scintillation Monitoring using GNSS Observations," this thesis presents solid research that significantly advances scintillation monitoring with accurate, economical, and wide-coverage solutions, improving GNSS performance in complex ionospheric conditions

Professors Claudia Grossi and David Pino from the Physics department of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) are participating in a pilot project on air quality and radon exposure in different schools in Catalonia

Ming Zeng defended his thesis co-directed by Pol Lloveras and Josep Lluís Tamarit, on December 4, 2024 at the Besòs Campus. Entitled "Barocaloric and multicaloric effects under hydrostatic pressure and electric field", the thesis presents the caloric effects in first-order phase transitions in solids of different types. These effects are of interest for efficient and sustainable refrigeration applications.

Andreu Puy defended his thesis supervised by Romualdo Pastor-Satorras on January 21, 2024 at Campus Nord. Entitled “Dynamic social patterns and information transfer in schooling fish”, the thesis focuses on empirically investigating and using theoretical models the collective movement in schools of fish, analyzing social interactions, information transmission, risk perception effects, and criticality signatures

Zheyao Hu, a student with a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council, defended her doctoral thesis entitled “In silico design of inhibitors of RAS oncogenic proteins and strategies for blocking of tumour growth” and directed by Dr. Jordi Martí Rabassa on January 14, 2025 at the UPC North Campus. The thesis presents a detailed study of the behavior of oncogenes of the RAS family, related to a third of all cancers that exist, and proposes a new methodology to achieve the computer design of drugs capable of blocking the activation of oncogenes. As an example, two prototype drugs are proposed, one of them potentially suitable for treating patients with pancreatic cancer and another for patients with melanoma

Mohammad Nayeem Akhter defended his thesis co-supervised by Kestutis Staliunas and Muriel Botey on December 20, 2024 at Campus Terrassa. Entitled “Non-Hermitian mode management in optical fibers and waveguides", the thesis presents a novel approach to tailoring optical beam transformations in graded index multimode fibers through non-Hermitian mode management

Maria Duque defended her thesis co-directed by Cristina Masoller and Jordi Tiana on December 5 at the Terrassa Campus. Entitled "Experimental study of the coherence of the light emitted by a semiconductor laser with optical feedback", the thesis studies the appearance and evolution of coherence during laser start-up in different optical feedback scenarios. In addition, the impact of sinusoidal modulation in the injection current on the coherence of lasers is investigated and includes a chapter on the impact of optical injection