The ICREAs

ICREA Research Professors form a vibrant community of scientists and researchers in all areas of knowledge that contribute to the advancement of humankind by exploring, interpreting and questioning. Have a look and learn about their amazing discoveries and findings here:

Costa Perez, Xavier

Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya (i2CAT)

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Costa Perez, Xavier
Research Professor at
Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya (i2CAT)
Engineering Sciences
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Research interests

The ever-wider availability of technologies such as mobile networks, artificial intelligence, cloud services, data analytics and ICT platforms is dramatically altering the way we live, work and interact – in what is usually referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The upcoming Beyond 5G disruptive technologies represent a key pillar for enabling this digital revolution unfolding around us. In contrast to previous mobile network generations, a key new aspect for the mobile industry moving forward is the need to expand the mobile ecosystem to also incorporate industry verticals like automotive, manufacturing, smart-grids and health. While early research and field-trials results are promising, The AI-driven automation of mobile networks for a cost-efficient digital transformation (DX) is still at its infancy and will require of a huge research effort to deliver on the DX promises in the next decades.

Key words
Beyond 5G, 6G, Mobile Networks, AI/ML, Automation, Digital Transformation

ORCID
: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9654-6109

RESEARCHER ID
: AAY-7637-2020
Courbin, Frédéric

Universitat de Barcelona (UB)

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Courbin, Frédéric
Research Professor at
Universitat de Barcelona (UB)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Research interests

My research is in observational cosmology and in gravitational lensing in all regimes: strong, weak, micro and milli. I contributed to develop the field of time delay cosmography with strongly lensed quasars, to measure the Hubble constant and address the so-called Hubble tension between early and late Universe measurements. I was granted and ERC Advanced Grant in 2018, COSMICLENS, specifically on time delay cosmography.

I'm also a builder member of the ESA-NASA Euclid mission, in which I've been involved from the very beginning. In Euclid, I'm the current lead of the strong lensing science working group. I'm active in the Rubin-LSST time domain survey and is part of the Spanish-led ESA-ARRAKIHS mission to study the nature of Dark Matter with ultra-deep observations of local galaxies.

A significant part of my research is also in pure signal processing, and in particular image deconvolution and morpho-spectral decomposition with sparse regularization and machine learning techniques.

Key words
Gravitational lensing (strong and micro), time delays, image processing, observational cosmology

ORCID
: 0000-0003-0758-6510
Daura Ribera, Xavier

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)

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Daura Ribera, Xavier
Research Professor at
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Life & Medical Sciences
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Research interests

The main objective of our research group is the development of new strategies to combat infections by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria, in particular of the Gram-negative (GN) group. The increasing emergence and spread of MDR pathogens constitutes at present one of the major threats to public health. The shortage of effective antimicrobials for the treatment of MDR GN infections is particularly critical as cases of pan-resistance are not uncommon. The discovery of new drug targets and modes of action (MoA), less prone to the development of resistance, has therefore become a pressing need. In parallel, the development of effective vaccines may offer a solution for high-risk population groups. Our team combines a range of computational and experimental techniques for the identification of antimicrobial-target candidates with new MoA and vaccine candidates eliciting prescribed resposes. Much of this work is done in collaboration with the group of Bacterial Molecular Genetics of IBB.

Key words
multidrug resistance, synthetic vaccinology, antimicrobials, bioinformatics, biomolecular modelling, biomolecular simulation

ORCID
: 0000-0001-9235-6730

RESEARCHER ID
: C-9275-2009
de Diego Balaguer, Ruth

Universitat de Barcelona (UB)

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de Diego Balaguer, Ruth
Research Professor at
Universitat de Barcelona (UB)
Social & Behavioural Sciences
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Research interests

My research combines information from brain-damaged patients, developmental populations and brain-imaging in healthy individuals to understand whether words and rules of language require different neural and cognitive mechanisms to be acquired since the earliest stages of contact with a new language. I am particularly interested in i) the role of the attentional systems in the acquisition of different aspects of language; ii) the role of the striatum as a brain structure that could make the interface between language and other cognitive functions necessary in the learning process; and iii) how is the acquired information consolidated and modified when we learn new additional information.

Key words
Language acquisition, rule learning, striatum

ORCID
: orcid.org/0000-0002-2357-5195

RESEARCHER ID
: V-2131-2017
De Fabritiis, Gianni

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

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De Fabritiis, Gianni
Research Professor at
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Research interests

The group's research interests are rooted in the applications of computation to science, where we regard intelligence as a form of computation itself.

1) Molecular simulation and machine learning. We use computation such as physics-based simulations and modern machine learning to provide novel, innovative methodological approaches in biomedicine.

2) Computational intelligence. We investigate machine learning methods that would bring machine intelligence closer to human-level intelligence. We train intelligence agents using reinforcement learning in virtual environments, we built scalable software for reinforcement learning and low-sample learning.

Key words
Computer simulations, Machine learning, Machine intelligence
de Graaf, Coen

Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)

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de Graaf, Coen
Research Professor at
Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Research interests

Electron transfer between molecules plays a fundamental role in the conversion of sunlight to useful forms of energy. This can take place by the generation of electricity in photovoltaic cells or indirectly by making possible catalytic reactions. Electron transfer processes can be studied in great detail through computational schemes and this has undoubtably helped to make capturing sunlight more profitable. In our group we are developing new computational schemes based on non-orthogonal configuration interaction to explore alternatives to the existing theoretical methods. The complementary information generated through this new approach can provide us very interesting information about the singlet fission process in which incoming sunlight produces (theoretically) twice as much electricity as in standard solar cells based on silicon. We also apply the non-orthogonal computational schemes to other areas such as molecular magnetism and core-level spectroscopy.

Key words
Theoretical Chemistry; Transition metal compounds; Light induced magnetism

ORCID
: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8114-6658

RESEARCHER ID
: A-5677-2008