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:

Yaroshchuk, Andriy

Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)

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Yaroshchuk, Andriy
Research Professor at
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Research interests

The keyword is behaviour of fluids at nano-scale. I study the transfer of ions and water molecules through nano-metric (tens of nanometers) barrier layers of composite nanofiltration membranes. Another example is the transfer of ions and water through nano-porous track-etched membranes having identical cylindrical pores. I also study processes of current-induced concentration polarization of nano-/micro-interfaces where concentration polarization is strongly-coupled to electroosmosis and fine separation of solutes like peptides can occur. Recently, I discovered that a layered structure consisting of a micro-perforated ion-exchange membrane and a nanoporous layer can have very interesting properties useful for AC electroosmotic pumping . Another topic is experimental and theoretical studies of ion transfer across polyelectrolyte multilayers where we have recently discovered very high (>1000) selectivities in the electrically-driven transfer of ions of different charge magnitudes.

Key words
nanofluidics, electrokinetics, electrochemistry, membrane, nanofiltration, colloid

ORCID
: 0000-0002-6364-6840

RESEARCHER ID
: L-5955-2014
Zabala, Santiago

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

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Zabala, Santiago
Research Professor at
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Humanities
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Research interests

My books, articles, and research focus on the meaning of art, politics, and freedom in the twenty-first century where, as I claim, "the greatest emergency has become the absence of emergency." The goal of philosophy is to thrust us into these absent emergencies (such as climate change or economic inequality) in order to disrupt the ongoing “return to order” that surveillance capitalism and right-wing populism are imposing upon us. These problems are discussed in my most recent book—Being at Large: Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020) —and in many articles. This year the Journal Lebenswelt published four critical essays with my responses on my theory of emergency exposed in my 2017 Columbia University Press book Why Only Art can Save Us. Aesthetics and the Absence of Emergency.

Key words
Philosophical hermeneutics, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and political philosophy

ORCID
: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1780-4588

RESEARCHER ID
: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/L-2327-2017
Zilhão, João

Universitat de Barcelona (UB)

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Zilhão, João
Research Professor at
Universitat de Barcelona (UB)
Humanities
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Research interests

The Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition has been the focus of my research for the last 20 years, leading to fieldwork at several sites: (a) the Lagar Velho rock-shelter (Portugal) and its burial of an early modern human child with diagnostic Neandertal features (evidence for interbreeding at the time of Neandertal/modern contact); (b) the Almonda karst system (Portugal), whose archeology spans half-a-million years and includes such important fossils as the 400,000 year-old Aroeira 3 cranium; (c) the Pestera cu Oase (Romania), site of Europe's oldest modern humans; (d) Cueva Antón and Cueva de los Aviones (Murcia, Spain), with the earliest known use of personal ornaments, 115,000 years ago; (e) several caves in Iberia, France and Italy where U-Th dating of associated speleothems showed rock art to be >65,000 years old. These early artists were Neandertals, whose behavioral modernity and late persistence to the south of the Ebro drainage remain my main areas of interest.

Key words
Palaeolithic Archaeology

ORCID
: 0000-0001-5937-3061

RESEARCHER ID
: L-5670-2014
Ziveri, Patrizia

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)

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Ziveri, Patrizia
Research Professor at
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Research interests

Global environmental change on marine ecosystems, ecology, and biogeochemistry at various time scales and complexity is a key theme of her research group, focusing on multidisciplinary investigation of marine organisms at the base of the food web and processes. With her work on the ocean in a changing climate and under human pressure, she is linking CO₂ dynamics, climate change and target marine processes and systems. Interest on pressing threats to the marine environment and their societal relevance has led to developing research on ocean acidification, warming and oxygen loss in different regions. The study of marine litter and the dispersion of microplastics in coastal and ocean systems is another research area of her group and a new clean laboratory targeting microplastic studies opened recently at ICTA-UAB. Her research is bridging the natural and social systems on issues of major societal and sustainable development concern.

Key words
climate and global change, high CO2 ocean, calcifying plankton, marine micropaleontology, biogeochemistry, marine microplastics