IFISC People: Associate Researchers

IFISC welcomes its news associate researchers, Nazareth Castellanos, Juan Carlos González-Avella and Stefano Longhi:

Nazareth Castellanos has a degree in Theoretical Physics and a doctorate in Medicine from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), as well as a Master in Mathematics applied to biology and a Master in Neurosciences by the Faculty of Medicine of the UAM. She has worked in the cognitive and computational neuroscience laboratory of the Biomedical Technology Centre, CTB (Complutense University and Polytechnical University of Madrid), in the Max Planck Brain Research Institute in Frankfurt and in Kings College in London. She is currently a researcher at CTB and research Director at the Nirakara - Lab laboratory and the Complutense University of Madrid Chair on mindfulness and cognitive sciences. She is director of the project "Brain-body interaction in meditators". Dr. Castellanos expertise strengthens the biomedical and psychological points of view on current neuroscience research at IFISC.

Juan Carlos González-Avella finished his PhD in Physics in 2010 at IFISC on models of social dynamics (opinion formation, culture propagation, mass media effects, complex networks), as well as on the study and analysis of dynamical systems on complex networks. He worked as a post-doc at the Physics department of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro PUC-RJ. His research focused on the analysis of fusions of Brazilian banks; the analysis of criminal networks in Brazil's main city, in collaboration with Brazil's Federal Police; the study and analysis of coevolutionary systems and the emergence of modular structures in networks. He is currently working as a Data Scientist at APSL, a Computing Engineering Company established in Mallorca.  Dr. González Avella will provide a link to the private sector by joint APSL - IFISC research on applications of Big Data analysis.

Stefano Longhi received the degree in Electronic Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Milan in 1992, and the PhD degree in Physics at the Polytechnic Institute of Turin in 1995. After a one-year period as a scientist researcher at MIT in the ultrafast optics group headed by Prof. Erich P. Ippen and H.A. Haus, in 1998 Dr. Longhi became Assistant Professor of General Physics at the Polytechnic Institute of Milan. From 2003 to 2015, he was an Associate Professor of Physics of Matter and, since 2016, he is full Professor of Physics at the same Institute. Dr. Longhi has a long standing collaboration with IFISC researchers, especially in nonlinear optics, pattern formation and quantum phenomena.