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:

Bustos, Paula

Institute for Political Economy and Governance (IPEG)

CLOSE

Bustos, Paula
Research Professor at
Institute for Political Economy and Governance (IPEG)
Social & Behavioural Sciences
view profile

Research interests

My research can be described as empirical investigations in economic development closely guided by international trade theory.

My first line of research studied the effects of a regional free trade agreement between Argentina and Brazil. I showed that it induced firms to export and innovate but reduced the demand for unskilled labor in the manufacturing sector.

A second line of research studies the effect of the adoption of new agricultural technologies, such as GM crops, on economic development in Brazil. Unskilled workers lost their jobs in agriculture but reallocated to the local manufacturing sector. This inflow if unskilled workers reduced local innovation and growth. However, agricultural productivity growth also led to savings and capital flows towards urban regions where it financed the expansion of the manufacturing and service sectors.

A recent line of research studies the effects of climate change on labor and capital allocation across sectors and regions in Brazil.

Key words
International Trade, Development Economics

ORCID
: 0000-0003-4517-1260

RESEARCHER ID
: B-5062-2013
Cabot, Andreu

Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya (IREC)

CLOSE

Cabot, Andreu
Research Professor at
Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya (IREC)
Engineering Sciences
view profile

Research interests

My research focuses on the design, synthesis and manipulation of nanocrystals and nanomaterials, their functional characterization and their application in the energy field. I use mostly solution-based processes to produce these nanocrystals and to assemble them to the macroscale. Solution-based methods allow for both unique control over composition and crystal phase at the nanometer scale and high versatility in the development of cost-effective technologies. From an application point of view, I have centered my work on the development of materials for energy conversion and storage. In particular, my group develops solution-processed thermoelectric nanocomposites from the bottom-up assembly of colloidal nanocrystals, (photo, electro)catalysts to accelerate energy-related chemical reactions and electrodes for next-generation batteries.

Key words
Nanomaterials, nanotechnology, energy, thermoelectrics, catalysis, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, nanocomposites, battery, supercapacitor, lithium sulfur battery, 3d printing, electrospinning

ORCID
: 0000-0002-7533-3251

RESEARCHER ID
: B-5683-2014
Cabré Vilagut, Xavier

Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)

CLOSE

Cabré Vilagut, Xavier
Research Professor at
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
view profile

Research interests

My research field is the mathematical analysis of Partial Differential Equations. These equations arise in mathematical physics, differential geometry, finance, and biology. My focus is on elliptic and parabolic equations, and on the analytical understanding of the regularity, symmetry, and other qualitative properties of their solutions. This often involves the use of geometric tools such as isoperimetric inequalities, whose study is an important part of my research. My main current project concerns a recently flourishing area: reaction problems for fractional diffusions associated to jump or Lévy processes. These are the so called 'anomalous diffusions', well noticed in the last decades in some reaction and biological fronts, as well as in mathematical finance.

Key words
Partial differential equations, reaction-diffusion problems, fractional diffusions, isoperimetric and Sobolev inequalities

ORCID
: 0000-0001-5682-3135

RESEARCHER ID
: L-2727-2014
Cáceres Aguilar, Mario

Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques (IMIM)

CLOSE

Cáceres Aguilar, Mario
Research Professor at
Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques (IMIM)
Life & Medical Sciences
view profile

Research interests

The genomic revolution has unveiled extraordinary possibilities unthought-of before. In particular, we are interested in understanding genomic structural variation and gene-expression changes, and how they relate to individual and species differences. To address these questions, we use humans as a model and take a multidisciplinary approach that combines experimental and bioinformatic analysis of the great wealth of data available, generating results of interest to many diverse fields. Our main line of research is the global analysis of polymorphic inversions in the human genome, which aims to investigate the biological significance of one of the less known types of variants in humans. This ranges from the development of new methods for inversion study and the first database of human polymorphic inversions, to the characterization of their population distribution, functional effects and selection signatures, as a way to ultimately determine their contribution to complex traits.

Key words
Genetics, Genomics, Human, Evolution, Structural variants, Gene expression

ORCID
: 0000-0002-7736-3251

RESEARCHER ID
: A-6379-2009
Calsamiglia Costa, Caterina

Institute for Political Economy and Governance (IPEG)

CLOSE

Calsamiglia Costa, Caterina
Research Professor at
Institute for Political Economy and Governance (IPEG)
Social & Behavioural Sciences
view profile

Research interests

Her research focuses on Public Economics with an emphasis on school choice, educational policies, affirmative action, measurement of non-cognitive skills and welfare economics in general. Her work includes theoretical, experimental and empirical analysis. She is currently working very closely with the education sector, promoting the implementation and evaluation of rigurous formative assessment tools for socioemotional learning in primary, secondary, vocational training and college worldwide.

Key words
Education, Data, Theory, Mechanism Design, School Choice, Non cognitive measurements

ORCID
: 0000-0003-2079-7179

RESEARCHER ID
: K-4009-2014
Casal Ribas, Paula

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)

CLOSE

Casal Ribas, Paula
Research Professor at
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Humanities
view profile

Research interests

My main field is distributive justice, which is a part of political philosophy that examines how social institutions should distribute benefits and burdens within a family or a nation-state, or across countries or generations. This requires assessing general principles (including equality, priority, and sufficiency) as well as policy responses (such as taxation and public spending proposals) to specific problems like gender inequality, local and global poverty or climate change. I have written from a biologically-informed perspective about gender, nonhuman animals, personhood and the distinction between natural and social inequality. I have also written about more specific issues, such as how to distribute the costs of child-rearing, the right to sea-access for landlocked states, the moral limits on religious and cultural accommodation, xenotransplantation and the Non-Identity Problem, and the distinction medical ethicists draw between therapy and enhancement.

Key words
National and international distributive justice, future generations, climate change, environmental taxes, animal ethics, evolutionary biology, gender, multiculturalism, and enhancement.

ORCID
: orcid.org/0000-0002-9227-6025

RESEARCHER ID
: F-6525-2016