Yesterday at the Historic Building's Paranymph Hall, Xavier Giménez, lecturer at the Faculty of Chemistry, and Meritxell Aulinas, lecturer at the Faculty of Earth Sciences, received the 11th and 12th Award for the UB best dissemination activity respectively. This award is given by the Board of Trustees and the Doctors' Senate to promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The ceremony was chaired by the rector of the University, Joan Guàrdia, and involved the participation of the president of the Board of Trustees, Joan Corominas; the vice-rector for Doctoral Studies, Trainee Research Staff and Talent Attraction, Maria Feliu, and the director of the Doctoral School, Maribel Peró.
Meritxell Aulinas Juncà is a professor at the UB's Department of Mineralogy, Petrology and Applied Geology. Her area of study is the geochemistry and petrology of volcanic lands, especially in the Canary Islands, La Garrotxa and Deception Island in Antarctica. In 2021, with the eruption of the volcano on the island of La Palma, she became one of the voices that contributed to explaining the phenomenon in an informative way. In 2023, she was also one of the driving forces behind the Mones de Ciència project , an initiative of the UB and the Barcelona Patisserie Guild to promote scientific culture and awaken scientific vocations among children.
Xavier Giménez Font is a professor at the UB's Department of Materials Science and Physical Chemistry. He teaches Environmental Chemistry and Physical Chemistry of Materials and is a researcher in computational simulation of chemical reactions. He has conducted research at the University of Perugia (Italy), the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of California, Berkeley. Author of around a hundred scientific articles, he also works as a science communicator.
Doctors' Senate Award and extraordinary doctoral awards
The ceremony included the presentation of the UB Doctors' Senate Award, given to Laura Castellet for her thesis El paisatge sonor de la Catalunya medieval (segles VI-XIV), un exercici de restitució emocional des de l'arqueologia del so, written under the supervision of Marta Sancho, from the Department of History and Archaeology.
The thesis analyses human sound activity in the early Middle Ages in Catalan territory. It is an interdisciplinary research in which, after obtaining data from a wide range of sources, an experimental archaeology exercise has been carried out: the restitution of instruments and sound objects as well as techniques for the expression of sound and music. In this way, it has been possible to understand basic elements of communication in medieval Catalonia: the function of church bells; military communication strategies, with the analysis of how sound passed from one place to another through objects such as the horns in castles or towers; the symbolic concepts of images, with recreations of, for example, the instruments with which the apocalypse was to be announced, or the understanding of literary texts from their sonorous reality.
Two secondary prizes were also awarded. The first went to Marta Riba for her doctoral thesis From corpora amylacea to wasteosomes, co-supervised by Carme Pelegrí and Jordi Vilaplana, from the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology. The second was awarded to Xiongbo Wu for the thesis Once and for all: postencoding neural mechanisms promoting rapid episodic, supervised by Lluís Fuentemilla, from the Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology.
Two diplomas of recognition were also presented at the event. One diploma went to Mar Guasp for her thesis Contributions of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis to Neurology and Psychiatry, co-supervised by Josep Dalmau and Francesc Graus, from the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. The other one was given to Andrea García for Development of tunable bioinks to fabricate 3D-printed in vitro models: a special focus on skeletal muscle models with potential applications in metabolic alteration studies, supervised by Josep Samitier, from the Department of Electronic and Biomedical Engineering and director of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC).
The end of the ceremony included the awarding of the UB extraordinary doctoral awards for the academic year 2022-2023.
En l'acte també es van lliurar dos diplomes de reconeixement. Un va ser per a Mar Guasp per la tesi Contributions of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis to Neurology and Psychiatry, coodirigida per Josep Dalmau i Francesc Graus, de l'Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) i la Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut. L'altre va ser per a Andrea García per Development of tunable bioinks to fabricate 3D-printed in vitro models: a special focus on skeletal muscle models with potential applications in metabolic alteration studies, dirigida per Josep Samitier, del Departament d'Enginyeria Electrònica i Biomèdica i director de l'Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (IBEC).
Al final de l'acte també es van lliurar els premis extraordinaris de doctorat de la UB del curs 2022-2023.
