He graduated in physics in 1987 from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Before and during his PhD (Yale University, 1994), he worked with Prof. J. Fernández de la Mora on aerodynamic focusing, inertial impaction, electrospray atomization, and differential mobility analysis. As postdoc associate with Prof. John B. Fenn at Virginia Commonwealth University, he did research on electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. In 1996 he joined Aradigm Corporation (California, USA) to develop liquid micro-jet technology for inhalation drug delivery. There, he co-discovered with Prof. A. Gañán-Calvo (Universidad de Sevilla, Spain) the "flow blurring" fine liquid atomization regime. Since joining Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in 2004 as ICREA Research Professor, his research has focused on electrospray and electrospinning for the manufacturing of nanomaterials; and recently also on COVID transmission in schools. He currently leads the Droplets, intErfaces, and floWs (DEW) lab at URV.

Research interests

I am interested in the use of fluid dynamics for designing nanomaterials in diverse fields of application. We use electrostatic fields to force liquid masses to eject tiny jets, which are then used to make nanodroplets (by electrospray) and nanofibers (by electrospinning). Both by experiment and by computer modeling, we aim to (i) understand the precise mechanisms underlying the fluid dynamic processes involved, (ii) devise new nano-fluidic strategies to create functional structures (e.g., ‘smart’ particles for nanobiomedicine), (iii) characterize the properties of such structures, (iv) engineer ways to assemble them into larger functional supra-structures, e.g. high resolution 3D printing for assembling nanofibers into scaffolds for growing cells into living tissues, and (v) develop strategies to demonstrate how these processes can be scaled up so they can ultimately benefit humankind.