Head of the CLIMA (Climate & Health Program at ISGlobal, ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4843-6180). Founding director of the IC3 climate institute and formerly head of the LRC-PCB. MSc in engineering, completed his PhD in 1997 (UB) on the simulation of extreme ecosystems under climate forcing. Visiting fellow at Princeton and UCSD, and COLA-IGES associated scientist. His background is in numerical ecology, climate dynamics and the modeling of climate impacts. Taught ecology, advanced statistics, climate dynamics and sustainability and led or participated in 46 research projects. He advised over 20 postdoctoral fellows. Co-chair of CLIVAR-Spain (-2007) and SSC of the MEDCLIVAR-ESF, CA and ER of the AR4-WGII (IPCC2007). SCM of the Drought Integration Group (DIG) of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP). Board Member of Nature Scientific Reports `Earth & Environmental Sciences' and of the OPCC to monitor climate change in the Pyrenees.

Research interests

The interplay between climate and health, where I attempt to uncover how climate impacts a wide range of diseases. I also work on climate dynamics, particularly the origin and predictability of El Niño and towards improving translational climate services for health, in particular for extremes. I am interested in the development of new statistical techniques and on improving computational models with different levels of complexity. The former to disentangle the interplay between intrinsic (e.g. immunity, demography, malnutrition) and extrinsic factors (e.g. climate, environment). For instance, the modeling of climate-driven infectious diseases (from waterborne, to foodborne, vectorborne and airborne diseases), both in endemic regions and in epidemic conditions (e.g. fringe areas of deserts and highlands in Africa and Asia). An emerging area of my research entails understanding the interaction between climate, pollution and the aerial microbiome for their effects on human health.