ACADEMICAL (extended description above)

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• Ph.D. Artificial Intelligence (International Ph.D. Mention). Technical University of Madrid (Spain. 2010 - 2014)  

• Master's in Astronautics and Space Engineering. Cranfield University (UK. 2016 - 2017)

• Master's in Advanced Computing for Science and Engineering (60 ETCS). Tecnical University of Madrid (Spain. 2010 - 2012)

• Master's in Computer Graphics, Virtual Reality and Games (2 years - 120 ECTS). Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain. 2008 - 2010)

• Degree in Computer Systems Engineering. University of Córdoba (Spain. 2003 - 2007)

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CERTIFICATIONS & COURSES

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• Emergency First Response (EFR)

• PADI Rescue Diver

• PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

• PADI Open Water Diver

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RESEARCH and PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 

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• 2018. Artificial Intelligence Scientist Research Scientist. Boeing Research & Technology Europe. Madrid. Spain

First person hired at BR&T Europe to lead on the research, development and application of advanced AI, data science, and machine learning solutions to improve Boeing aircraft’s reliability and safety. 20% of my time is spent on defining Boeing’s AI International strategy, as well as in finding opportunities of collaboration for AI projects with industrial partners, academia and research institutions. This includes writing proposals for obtaining European Commission funding. 70% of my time is focused on AI research and technology transfer to diverse domains, where I lead some of them (the remaining 10% is pure fun!):

1. Aircraft performance. Building of data-driven models using historical massive data from thousands of sensors in Boeing aircraft for the estimation of parameters (e.g., fuel consumption, trajectory, etc).

2. Predictive Maintenance. Prediction of aircraft subsystems failures for the reduction of costs and the improvement of operational efficiency, maintenance operations scheduling and flight safety.

3. Urban Air Mobility. AI technology integration for automated navigation and safe operations of UAVs and drones in contingency scenarios.

4. Air Traffic Management automation. Use of eXplainable AI to enable high levels of automations in ATM scenarios, whilst enhancing the collaboration between human air traffic controllers and machines.

5. Manufacturing. Application of AI for improving optimal cost analysis tasks.

6. Neuromorphic computing. Integration of computer vision models into neuromorphic computing technology on board UAVs to enable robust, autonomous landing manoeuvres.

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• 2014 - 2016. Postdoctoral researcher. Space Research & Planetary sciences. Physikalisches Institut. Universität Bern. Switzerland

1. I led the R&D tasks in design, development and testing of software for large-scale data analysis, processing and scientific visualization for the Planetary Imaging Group, which focuses on the interaction of light with the surfaces of solar system bodies and the physics of dynamic phenomena on planetary surfaces.

2. I built a physics model, using GPU technology and lab measurements using a goniometer/reflectometer, to numerically calculate the light scattering on computer-generated surfaces. This model is currently being used in photometry applications for space exploration missions.

3. I invented an idea to perform the geometric/physics calculations that enabled physicists and geologists to accurately estimate the real size of boulders and cliffs on the surface of comet 67P. This technique was included in a publication that concluded the existence of ancient ice water in the comet 67P (ESA’s website: https://goo.gl/WE6GtE; El Mundo: https://goo.gl/trB8zJ)

4. I created a scientific visualization of an exoplanet, GJ 436b, ejecting gases while transiting across the surface of a star. This was submitted to the Nature journal cover and reached the New York Times news-paper one month later (June 2015). (New York Times: https://goo.gl/U6HnHU)

5. I developed innovative 3D mapping techniques to represent the nucleus of the comet 67P for the Rosetta Mission. This improved significantly and quickly the understanding and physical interpretations by the ESA scientists (ESA: https://goo.gl/nRvXhZ)

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• Jan 2013 - June 2013. PhD student. Collaboration with the University of Lisbon (Portugal).

I was granted with a 5-months doctoral scholarship to conduct research for the ESA's Gaia Mission (European Space Agency).

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• October 2012 - February 2013. Doctoral stay. Fraunhofer IGD. Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany)

I stayed 5 months in the Graphisch-Interaktive Systeme group, under the supervision of Dr. Tatiana von Landesberger. I developed innovative methods for large-scale data processing, reduction and intuitive visualizations of brain and cancer data, as part of my PhD.

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• 2010 - 2012. Doctoral studies. Data Mining and Simulation department, Center for Biomedical Technology. Madrid. Spain

Granted with a doctoral scholarship by the Technical University of Madrid (Spain) to work in Cajal Blue Brain Project.

• I worked with oncologists and neuroscientists from the Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience team (UPM, UCM, Center for Biomedical Technology; Madrid), the Cajal Cortical Circuits lab (UPM-CSIC; Madrid) and Hospital La Paz (Madrid). Our research consisted in turning patterns hidden in the data into valuable insight and knowledge representation via Machine Learning.

• I developed innovative software to help in the classification and diagnosis of patients with mental and cancer diseases, by combining AI and supercomputing methods.

• The result and core of my Ph.D. research on these fields was a platform, called ’MedVir’. This development was applied to a medical real-life case: Traumatic Brain Injury’s Rehabilitation Prediction, based on Magnetoencephalography records. MedVir allowed to the medical experts the detection of wrong diagnosis cases. This idea was presented to IDEA2 Madrid (Madrid-MITM+Vision), being one of the finalists of the contest (El Economista: https://goo.gl/iPVAEt).

• I developed a tool that allowed the researchers to analyse and quantitatively visualize the synchronous neuronal activity (which involved massive amounts of sensors data obtained by Magnetoencephalography techniques) of the human brain in 3D and real time when patients make specific brain tests. This tool was presented to Her Majesty the Queen Sofía of Spain and the Spanish Sanity Authority in 2012 (El Pais: https://goo.gl/qBHBoN; Youtube: https://goo.gl/nE6L1c)

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PROJECTS

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• Rosetta Mission. First spacecraft to orbit and land on the surface of a comet. European Space Agency

• Gaia Mission. Mapping of 1 billion stars in the Milky Way. European Space Agency

• Cajal Blue Brain Project. First computer simulation of a human brain model down to a molecular level. EPFL

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LANGUAGES

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• Spanish: native

• English: academic IELTS certificate  7.5 out of 9.0 - C1 CEFR Level.  Download

• German: basic

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MUSIC

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• Played Violin for 7 years

• Learned Music Theory for 5 years

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FACTS and SELF-IMPROVEMENT 

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• 2 years after starting my PhD, the grants allocated for my colleagues and I were stopped because of the budget cuts of the financial crisis initiated in 2008. My mates quitted the PhD, but I kept doing it and I spent 1.5 years at home, doing research almost on my own, with minimal supervision and without economic support. I completed the PhD in 3.5 years.

• I was considered as candidate for the 4 months experiments for the NASA's SIRIUS international mission conducted in the NEK ground-based analog facility in Moscow. This mission studied the effects of isolation and confinement on human psychology, physiology, and team dynamics to help prepare for long-duration space exploration. 

• I did 'The Way of Saint James' from Roncesvalles to Santiago (738 km) in 9 days, with the broken knee ligaments, by bicycle and crossing country and mountains, whilst sleeping in the wilderness.

• I recovered from a knee ligaments surgery in 3 months doing the entire rehabilitation and exercises during the COVID-19 lockdown in my house.

 

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(EXTENDED DESCRIPTION)

 

ACADEMICAL

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- Master's in Astronautics and Space Engineering. Cranfield University (Cranfield, UK. 2016 - 2017)

★ Awarded with the Course Director’s Prize for Excellent Overall Performance ★

Subjects: Space Systems Engineering, Astrodynamics and Mission Analysis, Space Propulsion, Space Communications, Environmental Control and Life Support Systems, Modelling of Dynamic Systems, Space Environment, Payload Engineering and Instrumentation, Earth Observation and the Environment, Structural Mechanics, Spacecraft Data Handling and Software Development, Introduction to Spacecraft Operations.

Group Design Project: 'Design of the ECLSS for a Deep Space Habitat in the L1 Lagrange point of the Earth-Moon system'. Download

Description: This project allowed me to have an in-depth knowledge of the existing systems and technology on the International Space Station. Specifically, I focused on the life support systems required by the astronauts (amounts of oxygen, nitrogen, water and food necessary to perform vital metabolic functions; management of biological wastes, etc.), and the environmental control (atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, ventilation, toxic gases removal within the cabin, fire suppression, etc.) within the different modules of the station. After having a good understanding of these systems and how they interact each other, I made a design adapted and sized to our Deep Space Habitat supporting 14 crew members for 1 year.

[Keywords: Astronautics, Human Spaceflight, Life Support Systems, Moon, ISS, L1, Lagrange, Radiation, Water]

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Master's Thesis: 'Solar concentrator for direct processing of lunar regolith: Working towards an initial in-situ demonstrator' (In collaboration with the European Astronaut Center, ESA). Download

Description: The idea of this project was to design a solar energy concentrator that focuses heat onto the lunar regolith contained in a thermochemical reactor, thus triggering chemical reactions that release elements (oxygen, water, volatiles, metals) locked up in the regolith itself (which can be in form of minerals: ilmenite, silica, alumina,...). The extracted elements can then be processed and stored for use in life support systems or rocket fuel generation. The ultimate goal would be to use this technology on the lunar surface to exploit the existing resources on the Moon, thus contributing to the self-sustainability of the future Moon Base and minimizing largely the costs and risks involved in continuous resupplies from Earth.

[Keywords: space systems engineering, ISRU, thermochemical reactor, solar energy concentrator, volatiles extraction, heat transfer, Life Support Systems, Moon]

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- Postdoctoral research in Computers and Planetary Science. Universität Bern (Bern, Switzerland. 2014 - 2016).

Keywords: Planetary science, remote sensing, digital terrain models, photometry, software development, large-scale interplanetary data analysis, data dimensionality reduction, numerical and physics simulations, light scattering on planetary surfaces, database and catalogues creation, GPU architectures for physics and scientific visualization.

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Description: I worked for the ESA's Rosetta Mission and conducted research in: a) large-scale data analysis, processing and reduction of high-dimensional planetary data, b) combined use of GPU hardware and laboratory measurements to create physical models to simulate the sunlight scattering on computer-generated fractal planetary surfaces; c) geometric calculations of the position and orientation of the Sun respect to planetary surfaces, aiming to create physics models about the temperature, gas and dust distribution on such surfaces; d) creation of innovative techniques for the scientific visualization of data; e) integration of virtual reality devices into space simulations using 3D high resolution planetary shape models.

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- Ph.D. Computer Science (International Ph.D. Mention). Technical University of Madrid (Madrid, Spain. 2010 - 2014).

Field of research: Machine learning, data mining, supervised & unsupervised learning, high-dimensional and large-scale data analysis, dimensionality reduction, data visualization, software development, databases, supercomputing, bioinformatics, optimization algorithms.

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Doctoral Thesis: 'A visual framework to accelerate knowledge discovery based on dimensionality reduction minimizing degradation of quality'. Download

Description: I conducted research in the analysis of large-scale datasets from biological, DNA microarray and Magnetoencephalography (MEG) domains, for the early detection of cancer and brain diseases. I focused on the combined use of non-linear machine learning, data reduction, visualization and supercomputation techniques to extract patterns hidden in the data. Such patterns were used to create statistical models that, using visualization techniques, helped in the identification of genomic biomarkers for the early detection of diverse types of Cancer, Alzheimer and Dementia. To reduce the computational time, I was able to use one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, the Magerit (Madrid). The thesis was framered within the Cajal Blue Brain Project, I worked in the Center for Biomedical Technology (Madrid).

[Keywords: knowledge discovery, data dimensionality reduction, data visualization, optimization, supercomputing, data mining, early detection of diseases]

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​- Master's in Advanced Computing for Science and Engineering (60 ETCS). Tecnical University of Madrid (Madrid, Spain. 2010 - 2012).

Subjects: High-dimensional and large-scale data analysis, visualization techniques, supercomputing, parallel computing, bioinformatics, optimization algorithms, discrete algorithms, applied numerical algorithms, machine learning, data mining, dimensionality reduction. 

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Master's Thesis: 'Medvir: 3D Visual Interface applied to Gene Profile Analysis'. Download​

Description: The origins for this work arise in response to the increasing need for biologists and doctors to obtain tools for visual analysis of large datasets. A new simple and intuitive analysis method was proposed to visualize any high-dimensional medical data in three dimensional space that allows interaction with experts in order to enrich that representation. A powerful reduction in data dimensionality is carried out in order to represent the original information into a three dimensional environment. Thus, the experts can interact with the data and draw conclusions visually and quickly.

[Keywords: high-dimensional data, DNA microarray data, dimensionality reduction, data visualization, optimization, supercomputing, data mining]

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- Master's in Computer Graphics, Virtual Reality and Games (120 ECTS). Rey Juan Carlos University (Madrid, Spain. 2008 - 2010).

Subjects: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), ray-tracing techniques, forward and inverse kinematics, haptic, force-feedback and tracking devices, virtual reality, interaction human-computer, computer graphics and scientific visualization, geometric modeling, advanced rendering, animation and simulation, physics and numerical simulations. 

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Master's Thesis: 'Integration of a haptic Cybergrasp device in an advanced physics engine'. Download

Description: VR allows the interaction of computer-simulated environments with the sensory capabilities of human beings. These interactions can be carried out through the so-called haptic devices, which base the virtual experience in the sense of touch. This project focuses on the field of haptic rendering, which aims to study the sense of touch through a series of haptic hardware devices and rendering algorithms. The objective was to develop simulations that allowed us to catch, manipulate and feel virtual objects and obtain sensations very similar to those that would be obtained in the real world. This project focused on the integration of a haptic device CyberGrasp into an advanced physics engine in order to be able to implement each of the features mentioned above.

[Keywords: haptic and robotic devices, force feedback system, tracking devices, physics engine, rendering algorithms, human-machine interaction, visualization]

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- B.Sc. Computer Systems Engineering. University of Córdoba (Córdoba, Spain. 2003 - 2007).

Bachelor project: 'Tutorial and calculation of wind loads on buildings: SICAVI'. Download

Description: In the final project, firstly I studied the effects produced by the interaction of wind with different types of buildings, aiming to understand and assess what the behavior of buildings at a structural level would be. In this way it is possible to obtain a dataset that would inform about the stability and resistance of a building against the action of wind, taking into account factors such as its speed, angle of incidence and direction. Secondly, a software tool was proposed to visually represent buildings in 3D and calculate the values of the wind loads produced in their structural elements; as well as an interactive tutorial to teach students in an entertaining way the theoretical foundations required to understand the interaction of wind with buildings.

[Keywords: Structures Theory, Computer Programming]

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