I was born in Valencia Spain, where I graduated in physics in July 1991. I then got a PhD grant from CEA research organization in France to work on nuclear multi-fragmentation studies  within the INDRA collaboration at GANIL Caen (France). After my stay at GANIL I defended my PhD at the University of Valencia in March 1995.

I got a first post-doctoral research contract at LCP Caen (France) from April to September 1995, where I finalized the research program I developed during my PhD. I moved then to GSI in Darmstadt (Germany) to work as research associate from October 1995 to December 1997. During this period I focused my research activities in the investigation of spallation reactions and its implications in the design of innovative accelerator driven systems for nuclear waste transmutation, spallation neutron sources or new radioactive ion sources.

In January 1998 I got an assistant professor position at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I promoted to associate professor in January 2002 and I became full professor in January 2012. At USC I initiated a new research line on nuclear structure and nuclear reactions. During this period I have leaded several experiments at the FRS facility at GSI to investigate fragmentation and fission reactions taking advantage of relativistic stable and unstable ion beams.

From 2007 to 2011 I worked for the Particle and Nuclear Physics Program of the Spanish Ministry of Research as coordinator of the Spanish research activities in Nuclear Physics. I represented Spain in most of the international Nuclear Physics committees and I coordinated the Spanish participation in the new FAIR facility.

In 2011 I proposed the construction of a new research infrastructure at USC devoted to laser-plasma acceleration technologies and its applications. In 2013 I got 5 M€ for the construction of the Laser Laboratory for Acceleration and Applications (L2A2). From September 2013 till December 2015 I coordinated a team of 23 people working in the design and construction of this infrastructure. This work included a 700 m² building equipped with a clean room to host a 45 TW laser system, a radio-protected area for the experiments, and support laboratories. The project also included the purchase of the laser system and the construction of the vacuum beam lines and the acceleration chamber.

In 2015 I joint the applied research program on new technologies on radon measurement and mitigation carry out by the Laboratory for Radiation Analysis (LAR) at USC. This applied research program is contributing to the transfer of knowledge and technology through projects performed in collaboration with industrial companies and also by the creation in November 2017 of the spin-off company INTERA.

Presently, I am leading two research programs using two of the FAIR experiments under construction:

– Fission studies with relativistic radioactive beams induced by (p,2p) reactions at the R3B experiment.

– Nucleon resonances in the nuclear medium at the SuperFRS experiment.

I am also principal investigator of the LaserPET experiment at the L2A2 facility at USC.

More details on this research programs can be found in the section “Research”.

Last update May 2018