New ICREAs

ICREA is an expanding community. Each year, new research professors join ICREA after the ICREA call. This is a list of the most recent incorporations. We would like give them all a very warm welcome to the ICREA community: Benvinguts!

Diego Blas

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
Institut de Física d'Altes Energies (IFAE)
1 Dec, 2023
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Diego Blas

I am a theoretical physicist, with broad interests in cosmology, particle physics and gravitation. I try to elucidate two of the most pressing mysteries of modern physics: what constitutes the dark matter, an enigmatic source of gravitation key to understand the evolution of our Universe; and how to detect gravitational waves across their frequency spectrum, to access new information about the heart of the Cosmos. My approach is highly interdisciplinary: from using precise astrophysical observations to cutting-edge quantum devices to feel the subtle traces of dark matter or gravitational waves. We are living revolutionary times in both research lines, which makes working on them truly exciting. 

Damian Blasi

Social & Behavioural Sciences
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
1 Nov, 2023
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Damian Blasi

Damián Blasi investigates the relation between language and cultural diversity, human evolution, and cognition. He is currently an ICREA Research Professor based at the Center for Brain and Cognition, Pompeu Fabra University, a research associate at Harvard's Human Evolutionary Biology Department and the Department of Cultural and Linguistic Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and a Branco Weiss Fellow.

Marcos García Suero

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
Institut Català d'Investigació Química (ICIQ)
1 Dec, 2023
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Marcos García Suero

Marcos García Suero is an ICREA Professor that works on the discovery and development of novel catalytic methods based on unexplored and underappreciated chemical reactive species. He is pioneer on the development of a catalytic carbyne transfer platform with monovalent carbon equivalents and their application in molecular editing of simple and complex molecules to impact drug discovery, chemical biology and material science. He previously worked and studied at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University and Universidad de Oviedo and from 2014 is Group Leader at ICIQ in Tarragona. He has receive several national and international awards and recognitions such as the ERC CoG 2019, the 2019 Young Investigator award (EuChemS-Organic Division) and the 2020 Young Investigator award (Eli Lilly-RSQE).

Marc Güell

Engineering Sciences
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
1 Dec, 2023
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Marc Guëll

Marc Güell is an ICREA Research Professor, working at Pompeu Fabra University. His work includes several synthetic biology breakthroughs (radically recoded genome, PERVs-free pigs, mammalian gene writing, skin microbiome engineering) that have produced important impact (>18,000 citations, 3 companies developing therapies, patents licensed to leading companies) and he is currently developing new principles for biological engineering and synthetic evolution. He is an EMBO YI and member of Academia Joven de España. He has been recognized as 'Highly Cited Researcher' (2019); and with the National Research Award to the young talent (2018), the August Pi i Sunyer Award (2021) and the National Research Award Ángela Ruiz Robles (2022).

Josep Guerrero

Engineering Sciences
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
1 Nov, 2023
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Josep M. Guerrero

Josep M. Guerrero (PhD, UPC, 2003) is an expert in renewable energy engineering. Today he is an ICREA researcher at UPC and a part-time professor at AAU Energy, Aalborg University, Denmark, where he is responsible for the Interuniversity Center for Research on Microgrids (CROM). In 2020, he initiated neuroscience studies and research, and in 2022 he received the M.Sc. degree in Psychobiology and Cognitive Neuroscience from the Institute of Neuroscience (INc) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He received numerous awards, including IEEE Bimal Bose Award for Industrial Electronics Applications in Energy Systems in 2021, IEEE PES Douglas M. Staszesky Distribution Automation Award in 2022 and IEEE Modeling and Control Technical Achievement Award in 2023.

Bahareh Khezri

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)
1 Jan, 2024
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Bahareh Khezri

Bahareh Khezri's academic journey spans the globe, starting in Iran and taking her through Singapore (ASTAR, NTU, CARES, NRF/CREATE) the UK (University of Cambridge), and esteemed European institutions (VSCHT (CZ), ICIQ and URV (Spain)). With expertise in chemistry and materials science, she earned her Ph.D. from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2013. Her research focuses on multifunctional materials for energy applications like water splitting and CO2 reduction, involving precise tuning of catalyst properties and crafting nanomaterials. She also explores synthetic micro/nanorobots with applications in environmental and biomedical engineering, offering innovative solutions for pollution remediation and drug delivery. Her work addresses critical materials science challenges, aiming for a sustainable and advanced future. 

Kostas Kostarelos

Life & Medical Sciences
Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2)
1 Jan, 2024
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Kostas Kostarelos

Kostas has contributed to the discovery, development and clinical translation of nanomaterials and engineered nanoscale particle systems in medicine and biology. Kostas (PhD in Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, 1996) was the first named Chair of Nanomedicine in the UK in 2007 at the University College London (UCL) School of Pharmacy. He has spent all of his career developing research programmes within biomedical research institutions in the USA and the UK. He is leading the Nanomedicine Lab (www.nanomedicinelab.com) at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) in Barcelona (Spain). He is also Professor of Nanomedicine at the Faculty of Biology, Medicine & Health at the University of Manchester (UK).

Karim Lekadir

Engineering Sciences
Universitat de Barcelona (UB)
1 Jan, 2024
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Karim Lekadir

Karim Lekadir in an ICREA Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Barcelona. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College London and was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. He investigates new data science techniques for trustworthy and ethical artificial intelligence in medicine. He has been PI in 12 EU-funded projects, coordinated 5 Horizon projects, and was awarded an ERC Consolidator grant to investigate new AI techniques tailored to resource-limited settings.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga

Life & Medical Sciences
Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques (IMIM)
1 May, 2023
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Rodrigo Quian Quiroga

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga is an ICREA Research Professor, working at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM). Before moving to Barcelona, he was the director of the Centre for Systems Neuroscience and the head of Bioengineering at the University of Leicester in the UK. His main research is on the study of visual perception and memory, developing advanced data processing tools and performing electrophysiology and multiple single neuron recordings in epileptic patients implanted with intracranial electrodes for clinical reasons. He discovered what have been named "Concept Cells" or "Jennifer Aniston neurons"—neurons in the human brain that are uniquely human and that play a key role in memory formation and storage. He is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, was awarded a President International Fellowship by Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was selected as one of the 10 RISE Leaders in Science and Engineering in the UK. 

Mar Reguant

Social & Behavioural Sciences
Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC - IAE)
1 Sep, 2023
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Mar Reguant

Mar Reguant (PhD in Economics, MIT, 2011) is an expert in the areas of electricity market design and climate policy. She has previously worked at Stanford GSB and the Toulouse School of Economics, and Northwestern University. She is now an ICREA researcher at IAE-CSIC and a professor (part-time) at Northwestern. She has received numerous awards, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE, 2019) and an ERC Consolidator grant in 2021.

Manuel Salmeron

Engineering Sciences
Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (IBEC)
1 Jan, 2024
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Manuel Salmerón

Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez is ICREA Research Professor at Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (IBEC). Manuel is a bioengineer working on advanced biomaterials for cell and tissue engineering, to develop in vitro models and as tools for mechanobiology. His group engineer materials to provide control of the local cellular microenvironment, both biochemically and biophysically. Manuel holds an ERC AdG to develop the next generation of viscoelastic materials to understand this important property of the extracellular matrix in the context of tissue regeneration. Manuel was Professor of Applied Physics in Valencia until his relocation to Glasgow in 2013 as Chair of Biomedical Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy for Arts and Sciences.

Joshua Shepherd

Humanities
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
1 May, 2023
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Joshua Shepherd

Joshua Shepherd works on issues in the philosophy of psychology and action, as well as in neuroethics. He is an ICREA Professor at the Universität Autonoma de Barcelona, a Senior Fellow with the LOGOS research group, and the PI of the project Rethinking Conscious Agency, funding by an ERC Starting Grant. He has also been an Associate Professor at Carleton University, a Global Scholar with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and a Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. His first book, Consciousness and Moral Status, was published by Routledge. His second book, The Shape of Agency: Control, Action, Skill, Knowledge, was published by Oxford University Press.