Research News

Antonio Blanco Casares defended his thesis co-directed by Oriol Lehmkuhl and Daniel Mira on May 8, 2026 at Campus Nord. The thesis is titled "A Numerical Framework for Solving Complex Flow Regimes with Continuous Galerkin Methods" and investigates how new advances in numerical methods improve the computational simulations of physical systems involving flow problems.

PhD student Yating Zhou publishes her first research article in the prestigious Chemical Engineering Journal.

Jordi Pera i Ferreruela defended his doctoral thesis co-directed by Joaquim Casulleras i Ambrós and Jordi Boronat Medico on April 17, 2026 at Campus Nord. The thesis, entitled Itinerant ferromagnetism and polarons in SU(N) Fermi gases, focuses on determining under which regimes Fermi gases become ferromagnetic and, if so, how they get there. On the other hand, it also includes a small exploration of the behavior of impurities in these gases.

Ignasi Puch Giner defended his doctoral thesis, supervised by Víctor Guallar Tasies, at the North Campus on April 16, 2026. Titled “Optimization of Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics Techniques for Receptor–Ligand Binding Studies”, the thesis focuses on taking advantage of the theoretical framework of Monte Carlo methods to design a protocol applicable to the energetic characterization of ligand–protein interactions. In addition, these methodologies, combined with other computational techniques, have been applied in three collaborations oriented to real cases related to pathologies of the nervous system and the cardiac system.

Professors Jordi Mazón and David Pino propose the abolition of seasonal time changes in the European Union, arguing that the permanent adoption of winter time (UTC+1) would provide critical benefits for public health and safety in the face of global warming.

David Conesa defended his thesis “Empirical and Structural Mathematical Models for Biological Systems: Case Studies in COVID-19 and Cardiac Dynamics” in the EPSEB in Campus Sud on the 18th of December. Under the supervision of Dr. Enric Alvarez Lacalle, the thesis develops different empirical, predictive, and mechanistic mathematical models to study and analyze two branches of biology: epidemiology in the context of a pandemic such as COVID-19, and cardiac dynamics.

In a joint project between the research groups GCM (Department of Physics) and NEMEN (Department of Chemical Engineering), PhD student Maahin Mirzay Shahim, from South Azerbaijan, Iran, has developed new catalytic materials by combining glassy alloys and cerium oxide in her PhD defended on December 16 and directed by Eloi Pineda and Lluis Soler