Team

Full-time professors

Batet Miracle, Lluis

Engineer (1992) and Doctor-Engineer (2004) from the Technical University of Catalonia. He has been in charge of several subjects related to nuclear engineering, energy technology, and energy resources within UPC. His main research activities have been related to different subfields of the Thermal-Hydraulics (TH) of NPPs, a field where he has participated in several cooperative projects in the OECD framework. Nowadays the focus of his research has broadened to include the TH of fusion nuclear reactors along with several aspects of Fusion Nuclear Technology: application of TH system codes to Nuclear Fusion Plants and tritium transport modeling are key issues in his research activity. He has been one of the principal investigators in the Spanish Fusion Program TecnoFus (Consolider Ingenio). He teaches Reactor Physics and Core Design in the Master of Nuclear Engineering.

He has participated in several Human Development Projects in Peru, India, and Nepal, related to the use of renewable energy at a small scale.

He is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear Engineering division of the Department of Physics.
He is the Director of the Master's Degree in Nuclear Engineering.
He coordinates the KIC InnoEnergy program at UPC.

Detailed and updated information on Lluis’s research activity can be found at:
FUTUR-UPC

Calviño Tavares, Francisco

Paco is a highly qualified nuclear physicist with a Master's (1983) and PhD (1990) in experimental high-energy physics from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. His career includes positions at CERN, SLAC, and the University of Colorado.

Paco's expertise spans nuclear physics detector design, nuclear power plant safety simulations, medical imaging advancements using Monte Carlo simulations, and particle accelerator engineering. He currently focuses on experimental nuclear physics research.

A passionate educator, Paco's teaching is based on active learning techniques, particularly cooperative learning methods.

He is a Full Professor and the Head of the Nuclear Engineering division of the Department of Physics.
Paco funded and leads the ENPAI team within the ANT group.

Detailed and updated information on Paco’s research activity can be found at:
FUTUR-UPC, SCOPUS, and Google-Scholar.

Cortes-Rossell, Guillem

Guillem Cortes graduated in Physics from the "Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona" in 1991 and obtained his Ph.D. in Physics in 2002 from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC). His main research activities have been focused on the measurement of environmental radioactivity, modeling of ionization radiation detectors with Monte Carlo techniques (MCNPX, PENELOPE, FLUKA, GEANT4), development of a 4π high-efficiency neutron detector (BELEN detector) to measure beta-delayed neutron emission properties, and collaborates on the measurement of neutron capture cross sections at the n_TOF experiment (CERN). He teaches in the Nuclear Engineering Master and Energy Technology in the Industrial Engineering Master. 

He is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear Engineering division of the Department of Physics.
He is the coordinator of the ANT research group.

Detailed and updated information on Guillem’s research activity can be found at: 
FUTUR-UPC, SCOPUS, ORCID

de Blas del Hoyo, Alfredo

Industrial Engineer and Doctor-Engineer from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya. He works as a Lecturer in the Nuclear Engineering Division of the Physics Department. He has been teaching at the Technical University of Catalonia since 2000.

His main field of research is Nuclear Instrumentation and Radiation Detection. He has carried out research in Fusion and Neutronics. He is responsible for the hardware design of new neutron dosimeters. He has collaborated with the Catalan section of the Spanish Nuclear Council as responsible for the instrumentation of a system to detect and identify gamma emitters in aerosols operating in the Catalan Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network.

He is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear Engineering division of the Department of Physics.
He leads the Nuclear Instrumentation activities within ANT-ENPAI.

Detailed and updated information on Alfredo’s research activity can be found at:
FUTUR-UPC   ORCID: 0000-0002-0868-9514.

Futatani, Shimpei

Shimpei Futatani obtained two independent PhD degrees; in Energy Science at Kyoto University in Japan (2008), and in plasma physics at Aix-Marseille University in France (2009). In 2010, he was appointed as a postdoctoral researcher at the ITER Organization via Monaco Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2013, he joined the LMFA, Ecole Centrale de Lyon as a postdoc. In 2014, he was appointed as a senior researcher at Barcelona Supercomputing Center. He obtained the Ramon y Cajal (RyC) for 2015-2020. Currently, starting in 2018, he is appointed to the University Politècnica de Catalunya for research and teaching activities. He contributes to international projects of the computational analysis of MHD simulations of fusion plasmas in close collaborations with existing experimental fusion devices and implications for ITER.

He is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear Engineering division of the Department of Physics.

Detailed and updated information on Shimpei’s research activity can be found at: 
FUTUR-UPC SCOPUS

Pretel Sanchez, Carme

Ph.D. Engineer (1997) by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, where she has teaching and research responsibilities in the areas of Nuclear Engineering, Energy Technology, and Dynamic Analysis of Nuclear Power Plants. She has participated in a large number of national and international projects related to the simulation of the behavior of NPPs and Nuclear Data.

She is an Associate Professor in the Nuclear Engineering division of the Department of Physics.
Carme is on leave. She presently holds a position at the Departament de Recerca i Universitats at Generalitat de Catalunya.

Detailed and updated information on Carme’s research activity can be found at: 
FUTUR-UPC

Freixa Terradas, Jordi

Jordi Freixa Graduated in Physics from the University of Barcelona in 2001 just before joining the PhD Nuclear Engineering Program at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya. He finished his PhD on “SBLOCA transients with boron dilution” in 2007. Jordi worked as a post-doc for 4 years at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI, Switzerland) participating in several projects including safety analyses of LOCA and SBLOCA scenarios for the EPR Olkiluoto III nuclear power plant. He continued at PSI as a senior scientist for 2 additional years and lectured at the Nuclear Engineering Master program of the Technical University of Zurich (ETH). Jordi joined ANT in January 2013 under a UPC/PQS contract. His main areas of research are the validation and application of best-estimate thermal-hydraulic codes for LWRs which he combines with teaching activities in the Master of Nuclear Engineering.

He is an Assistant Professor in the Nuclear Engineering division of the Department of Physics.
He is the Coordinator of the European Master in Nuclear Energy (EIT's EMINE-Innoenergy) at UPC.

Detailed and updated information on Jordi’s research activity can be found at: 
FUTUR-UPC

Teaching assistants, Postdocs, Invited researchers, ...

Casanovas Hoste, Adria

Adria Casanovas graduated with a Physics degree from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in 2013, followed by a Master's in Nuclear Physics from Universitat de Barcelona in 2014 and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in 2020. His doctoral research focused on Neutron Capture Reactions of Thallium isotopes, vital for the s-process of stellar nucleosynthesis. He conducted data analysis for nuclear physics experiments, notably neutron capture measurements at CERN's n_TOF, and conducted simulations and studies on stellar nucleosynthesis to explore new neutron capture experiments. Adria actively disseminated his findings in international conferences, serving as a spokesperson for the 205Tl(n,γ) campaign (Jul-Aug 2018) and participating in educational events such as the NuGrid/JINA-CEE/ChETEC School (2018). Additionally, he engaged in workshops including the EC-JRC Neutron Resonance Analysis School (2017), Ecole Joliot-Curie (2016), and Joint ICTP-IAEA School (2015)

Martinez Quiroga, Victor Manuel

Victor Martinez-Quiroga is the co-founder of Nortuen, a nuclear and energy engineering focused on providing advanced R+D+I services to the nuclear industry. With a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Barcelona, he obtained his Ph.D. focused on scaling issues applied to system codes and quality assurance processes in 2015. He has taken part as TH analyst in the OECD/NEA ROSA, ROSA-2, and PKL-2 projects, and he has been working at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) qualifying and improving NPP models of the Ascó and Vandellós nuclear utilities. In 2013, he also collaborated at UPC on the TECNO-FUS project, developing operational control systems for the supercritical CO2 power cycle of the DEMO fusion reactor.

Mas de les Valls Ortiz, Elisabet

Elisabet Mas de les Valls graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 2004. She joined the Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center (CTTC), where she obtained a Master's degree in Thermal Engineering and Energy Technology. In 2006 she joined ANT and started the Ph.D. on "Development of a simulation tool for MHD flows under nuclear fusion conditions", which she finalized in 2011. Since 2008, she has become a teaching assistant in the Heat Engines Department at the UPC. At present, she collaborates in the ANT group and GreenTech group, both at UPC. Her research is mainly focused on the CFD study of buoyancy-driven magnetohydrodynamic flows as applied to fusion technology, but she is also involved in the tritium transport phenomenon and thermal radiation modeling.

Pérez Ferragut, Marina

Marina Pérez Ferragut graduated in Physics from the University of Barcelona in 2002 and joined the Ph.D. Nuclear Engineering Program at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 2003, and finished her PhD on “Integration of a quantitative-based selection procedure in an uncertainty analysis methodology for NPP safety analysis” in 2011. She has continued working in the ANT group since then. In 2009 she started working part-time at Innovative Systems Software as an external consultant providing support in RELAP5 trainings and code development. Her main areas of research are uncertainty analysis and the application of best-estimate thermal-hydraulic codes for LWRs.

Pericas, Raimon

Raimon Pericas Graduated in Physics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2001. Master's degree in New Renewable Energies at ICT (Institut Català de Tecnologia). PhD in the Nuclear Engineering Program at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 2015. His thesis topics are Thermalhydraulics-Neutron kinetics coupled codes and uncertainties calculations. He also holds experience in Severe Accident analysis. His main area of research is focused on BEPU analysis with coupled calculations. He is currently lecturing as an associate professor at the University of Vic. His areas of teaching are New Renewable Energies, Energy production environmental impact analysis, Physics, and Mathematics.

Suárez Cambra, Daniel

 Daniel Suarez i Cambra graduated in Industrial Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), MSc in Nuclear engineering from the ENEN Consortium (EMSNE), and obtained his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering in 2023 from UPC (T4F). His main professional activity is devoted to Ascó NPP (PWR) operators training at the full-scope control room simulator at Tecnatom, S.A.  He joined the department as an Associate Professor in 2016, lecturing at Master's level. His research works related to his PhD are oriented to the breeding blanket MHD phenomenology at fusion reactors.

He is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.

Tarifeño-Saldivia, Ariel

B.S. in Physics in 2004 (Universidad de Chile). PhD in Physics in 2011 (Universidad de Concepción), working at the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission (CCHEN) on tabletop magnetic fusion devices. Researcher at CCHEN from 2011 to 2014, working on experimental Plasma Physics, diagnostics for fusion experiments, and MC modeling of neutron detectors. In 2014, Ariel started a one-year postdoc at Instituto de Física Corpuscular in Valencia. Later in 2015, he joined the ANT group to work on nuclear data with relevance to Nuclear Technology and Nuclear Astrophysics. In particular, working on measurements of beta-delayed neutron emission properties and neutron capture cross-sections in different nuclei; and the development of neutron detection techniques and advanced nuclear instrumentation. Currently, he is involved in three international collaborations: MANY, HENSA, and n_TOF (CERN, Switzerland).

He is now a "Científico Titular" at IFIC-CSIC-UV, Valencia, Spain

Technical Staff

Garcia Sánchez, Roger

Telecommunications and Electronics Systems Technical Engineer at the UPC-EPSEVG (2010). He is a workshop and laboratory technician at the School of Industrial Engineering of Barcelona (ETSEIB, UPC). He has more than 10 years of experience providing support to R+D+i and teaching at the Nuclear Engineering Division at UPC. He has strong experience in developing electronic devices and nuclear instrumentation. He participates in the LINrem project as a developing engineer.

Riego, Albert

PhD students

Brusasco, Benedetta

Benedetta Brusasco started his Ph.D. in 2023 in the field of neutron detection techniques for dosimetry and medical applications. The main goals will be related to multidisciplinary experiments and applications with neutron detectors, focused on medical applications: neutron dosimetry applied to hadron therapy.

Casamor, Max

Max Casamor started his PhD in 2016 in the field of thermal hydraulics. The main goal is to establish a coupling between COBRA-TF and RELAP

Mont Geli, Nil

Bachelor's Degree in Physics at Universitat de Barcelona, finished in July 2019. Master in Nuclear Physics finished in 2020. Started his PhD in October 2020. Ph.D. thesis title: Neutron detection for underground laboratories, secondary particles from cosmic rays and (alpha,n) reactions.

Pallàs i Solís, Max

Bachelor's Degree in Physics at Universitat de Barcelona, finished in September 2019. Master in Nuclear Physics finished in 2020. Started his PhD in October 2020. Ph.D. thesis title: Measurement of beta-delayed neutrons relevant for understanding the formation of the r-process rare earth-peak around mass A~160.