Alejandro F. Villaverde

Ramón y Cajal research fellow at the Department of Systems Engineering and Control of the Universidade de Vigo, in Galicia, Spain. Affiliated (ad honorem) with CITMAga, the Galician Center for Mathematical Research and Technology. Editorial board member of PLOS ONE. Included in Stanford/Elsevier's Ranking of the World's Top 2% Scientists ( single year list) since 2022.

I am currently a member of the Nonlinear Control Group, within which I lead a subgroup that works in Biosystems Identification, Control and Optimization (BICO). Previously, I was a postdoctoral research associate with Julio Banga (Bioprocess Engineering Group, IIM-CSIC; currently at the Computational Biology Lab @ MBG-CSIC) in 2009-2015 and 2016-2020. In the first period I collaborated with the late John Ross (Stanford), visiting his lab on two occasions. In 2015-2016 I was an I2C fellow, funded by the Xunta de Galicia and working at the universities of Minho (BioSystems group) and Oxford (SySoS group). Prior to that (2005-2009) I was an FPI fellow at the Universidade de Vigo, where I pursued a PhD in systems and control engineering under the supervision of Antonio Barreiro. During this period I spent short stays at the universities of Groningen and MIT.

Further information can be found in my detailed CV

Sandra Díaz Seoane

I am currently a Ph.D. student at the Department of Systems Engineering and Control of the Universidade de Vigo, in Galicia, Spain, under the supervision of Dr. Alejandro F. Villaverde. As a member of the BICO group, integrated in the Nonlinear Control Group, I work on a project called PREDYCTBIO, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation – Agencia Estatal de Investigación. My research is focused on the development of computational methods for the efficient analysis of structural properties of dynamical systems (identifiability, observability, controllability, reachability). I am also interested in optimal control for biological systems.

I obtained my Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2020, starting to learn about control theory with my bachelor’s dissertation. Afterwards, I decided to focus on applied mathematics, obtaining a Master’s Degree in Industrial Mathematics with a specialisation in simulation from the same university in 2022. The topic of my master’s dissertation was non-linear structural observability and identifiability.

Xabier Rey Barreiro

Mechanical engineer by training at the University of Vigo. I continued my education with a Master’s Degree in Industrial Mathematics with a specialization in mathematical modelling from the University of Santiago in 2022. I finished these studies with my master’s thesis about systems biology and structural identifiability.

I am currently a Ph.D. student at the Department of Systems Engineering and Control of the University of Vigo under the supervision of Dr. Alejandro F. Villaverde. My research is funded by the Xunta de Galicia’s project IDEAS:CAMI. My doctoral research focuses on applied mathematics for nonlinear control systems, particularly in regard to structural identifiability analysis. The main area of application is immunology, in which I am co-supervised by Jose Faro Rivas (CINBIO, Universidade de Vigo).

Adriana González Vázquez

I am a Biomedical Engineer from the University of Vigo, where I am currently working at the Department of Systems Engineering and Control.

I firstly specialized in biomechanics in my bachelor degree, which I started in 2019, focusing in biomaterials, simulation of fluidic and solid systems and also Deep Learning. I finished my final project about Convolutional Neural Networks in 2023, and then I went to Barcelona to study a Master in Biomedical Engineering. There, I got more interested in the modeling of biomedical systems through Finite Elements Simulation tools, and I completed my master thesis at the IBEC (Intitute for Bioengineering of Catalonia). Its main goal was the optimization of an implantable blood sensor with high hydrophobicity antifouling shielding through FEM.

Mahmoud Shams Falavarjani

I obtained a BEng in Chemical Engineering from the Babol Noshirvani University of Technology (Babol, Iran), and an MEng in Renewable Energy Engineering from the University of Isfahan (Iran) in 2020..

At the beginning of my career I worked as a project manager in chemical engineering and renewable energy applications, focusing on energy efficiency and sustainability. I also worked as a Math Teacher for the Ministry of Education of Iran. In February 2025 I joined the BICO group to work in the DYNAMO-bio project.

Dorin Alexandru Ionescu

Physics graduate by the University of Santiago de Compostela, where I started in 2018. On my last year, I went to Gdansk, in Poland, to study at the Politechnika Gdanska in order to finish my bachelor's degree in an international setting. I then studied a Master's Degree in Industrial Mathematics in the University of A Coruña with a specialisation in mathematical modeling, where I was first introduced to the analysis of dynamical systems in a complex setting. I was with the BICO group from August to December, 2024.

Sara Eguizábal Lorenzo

I am currently pursuing a master's degree in biomedical engineering, having completed my undergraduate studies in the same field at the University of Vigo. Throughout my academic journey, I have focused primarily on electronics, coding, biological simulations, and deep learning. For my final undergraduate thesis, I developed an artificial neural network to interpret sign language. Additionally, I was part of a research group during my exchange program at Southern Illinois University, where I participated in the medical device research area. Taking a course on modeling and simulation of biomedical systems during my master's program sparked a strong interest in this field. Consequently, I applied for a JAE-Intro research scholarship (LifeHub CSIC network), and spent some months studying a plant model's identifiability, observability, and parameter estimation. This work was performed at the BICO group in collaboration with Julio Banga's (MBG-CSIC).