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:

Pelaz Herrero, Soraya

Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica (CRAG)

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Pelaz Herrero, Soraya
Research Professor at
Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica (CRAG)
Life & Medical Sciences
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Research interests

The connection among crop production, climate change, and demographic growth is progressively uncovering a profound impact in the food security throughout the world. Because plants are sessile organisms, they maximize their chances to survive adversities by reprogramming their development for adaptation to environmental changes. Under this scenario, integrative approaches to understand the specific role of essential genetic regulatory networks in plants are urgently needed. RAV genes configure a potential hub to modulate plant development in response to adverse environmental conditions, which are major limiting factors for plant survival, adaptation, and crop production. Therefore, we perform a comprehensive functional study of RAV genes along the green tree of life. We analyze their gene regulatory networks in abiotic stress responses and aim to decipher RAV gene evolution and function acquisition unravelling their roles from non-flowering plants to flowering plants.

Key words
Flower development, floral induction, Arabidopsis.

ORCID
: 0000-0001-7699-9330

RESEARCHER ID
: F-3431-2015
Pelejero Bou, Carles

Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC - ICM)

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Pelejero Bou, Carles
Research Professor at
Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC - ICM)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Research interests

I am interested in understanding and quantifying how the marine environment and climate are changing today, in which ways they have changed in the past, and how will they influence marine organisms and ecosystems in the future. To this end, I analyse deep sea sediments and corals as archives of changes in the past, use systems to monitor the present, and run manipulative experiments in aquaria to simulate the future. A main environmental issue that I am currently studying is the progressive acidification of the oceans that is occurring due to the marine absorption of part of the CO2 that humans are emitting to the atmosphere. I am also setting up culture-based systems to calibrate paleoceanographic proxies in corals, making use of the aquaria facilities at the ICM.

Key words
Global Change, Paleoceanography, Oceanography, Geochemistry, Ocean Acidification, Corals, Deep Sea Sediments

ORCID
: 0000-0002-7763-7769

RESEARCHER ID
: AAF-4550-2019
Penta, Antonio

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

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Penta, Antonio
Research Professor at
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Social & Behavioural Sciences
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Research interests

My research spans a range of areas within game theory, mechanism design, behavioral economics and auction theory. In game theory and mechanism design, most of my research has focused on questions of robustness with respect to various forms of model misspecification. I have also worked on more applied IO topics, concerning the market for online advertisement and online ad auctions, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Within behavioral economics, my work has been both theoretical and experimental. So far the main focus has been on understanding and modeling individuals’ reasoning processes, and particularly the interaction between their cognitve abilities and incentives, in strategic settings as well as in individual decision problems. More recently, I started a new agenda on risk preferences.

Key words
Game Theory; Mechanism Design; Bounded Rationality; Online Auctions

ORCID
: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3796-8245
Pérez García-Pando, Carlos

Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS)

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Pérez García-Pando, Carlos
Research Professor at
Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Research interests

I am interested on understanding atmospheric aerosols and traces gases, from the physical and chemical processes affecting them, to their effects upon weather, climate, ocean biogeochemistry, air quality and health. My research group develops improved representations of pollutants within atmospheric and climate models to characterize their sources, sinks, atmospheric lifecycles and effects. I am known for my work on dust aerosols; in that context, I hold an AXA Chair that tackles both fundamental and applied research questions related to dust and I lead an ERC Consolidator Grant that investigates the role of the dust mineralogical composition in the climate effects of dust based on theory, experimental campaigns, remote spectroscopy and modeling.

Key words
Atmospheric aerosols, desert dust, climate, air quality, modeling, health impacts

ORCID
: 0000-0002-4456-0697
Permanyer Ugartemendia, Iñaki

Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics (CED)

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Permanyer Ugartemendia, Iñaki
Research Professor at
Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics (CED)
Social & Behavioural Sciences
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Research interests

I will research the existence of new layers of health inequality that emerge because of the ageing process unfolding across most contemporary societies. I want to focus on the following research questions: what is the extent of inequality in the distribution of healthy and unhealthy lifespans across individuals? How do these inequalities vary across countries and socio-economic groups? Are the health improvements that generate populations that are more longevous also increasing the health gaps among those groups? Amid a swift ageing process with uncertain prospects for the health status of large population sectors, it is crucial to have good measures of population health that allow addressing the demographic challenges ahead. The results of this research can be extremely useful for the design of equitable pension schemes and retirement policies that are sensitive to the heterogeneous characteristics and needs of the underlying population, and for the public provision of medical care.

Key words
Population health dynamics; health inequality; ageing; mortality; gender; poverty.

ORCID
: 0000-0002-7051-5144

RESEARCHER ID
: M-3571-2015
Petrova, Maria

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

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Petrova, Maria
Research Professor at
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Social & Behavioural Sciences
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Research interests

I am an applied microeconomist whose focus is information economics, political economy, and development. I seek to understand how information flows affect complex links between economic and political phenomena. Existing works traditionally underestimate the role of information provision in media for different aspects of development, and my research fills this gap. The main question that I address in my work is how information affects political, economic, and financial outcomes in different countries. My recent research is focused on the political economy of traditional and social media, and on causes of the growth and demise of populism and extremism.

Key words
political economy, media economics