Research News

Joel Cumelles Céspedes defended his doctoral thesis co-directed by Enrique Ortega Agodino and Jaime Oscar Casas Piedrafita on July 17 at the Baix Llobregat Campus. Titled System Identification of High-Performance Paraglider–Harness/Pilot Dynamics: From Modelling to Flight-Test Data. The thesis presents an integrated framework for the systematic analysis of high-performance paraglider and harness/pilot systems

Cibrán López defended his thesis co-directed by professors Claudio Cazorla and Edgardo Saucedo on June 29, 2026 at the Diagonal-Besòs Campus. Titled “Unveiling Correlated Charge Dynamics and Recombination Pathways in Energy Materials via Quantum Simulations and Machine Learning”, the thesis combines first-principles simulations and machine learning to model, at the atomic scale, the mechanisms that govern ionic transport and electronic recombination in solid-state electrolytes and emerging photovoltaic absorbers.

Researchers of the Department of Physics in collaboration with a team of European institutions have evaluated the impact of Nirsevimab, a monoclonal antibody that prevents bronchiolitis after a viral infection. This study has been published in a journal of the prestigious editorial group “The Lancet”.

Arnau Jurado Romero defended his thesis supervised by Rossend Rey Oriol (UPC) and Carles Calero Borrallo (UB) on May 28th, 2026 at Campus Nord. The thesis, with the title "Self-Propulsion of Molecular Swimmers", demonstrates a propulsion mechanism for a small molecule, via all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. It also fully investigates the nature of the resulting propulsion, for both single self-propelling particles, and many body systems. It concludes by applying state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to thermophoresis in aqueous solution, a closely related problem to self-propelling molecular swimmers.

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.