Aurora Hernández Machado

Aurora Hernandez-Machado (AHM) is full Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Barcelona. AHM is an international renown expert in the general topic of Physics of Complex Systems, particularly in the fields of Biophysics, Microfluidics and Nanoscience. AHM has a long-lasting research career since 1981 working in very different subjects such as stochastic processes applied to optics and turbulence, interfaces and pattern formation of viscous fluid flow, liquid crystals and solids, phase-separation dynamics, and domain growth with spatial dependence and fluctuations. These publications have obtained a large number of citations until the present moment. More recently AHM has started a new line of research in the field of Biophysics of biomembranes.

AHM and his student Dr. F. Campelo has developed the first phase-field mathematical model of membrane elasticity to appear in the literature. The Ph.D. thesis of Dr. Campelo has obtained a prestigious award for “outstanding doctoral thesis research in biological physics 2010” in an international competition granted by the American Physical Society (APS, U.S.A.) and the results have been published in Physical Review Letters.

AHM has done also significant recent contributions to other areas of Complexity, particularly in the field of Microfluidics with important publications in prestigious journals like Nature Materials, Nature Communications and Physical Review Letters. AHM present interest is focused on the Biomechanics of biosystems like biofluids, red blood cells, bacteria and cancer. After a long period of theoretical mathematical modeling and collaboration with international and national experimental groups, AHM has complemented her research by establishing a Laboratory of Microfluidics and Nanoscience at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona. In this Laboratory AHM has opened a new line of research on Microrheology which has given rise to a new concept that she has dub Front Microrheology with an associated international patent currently accepted to be under revision by the European Patent Office of Munich.

AHM has established along her carreer an extensive network of national and international contacts in Spain, U.S.A., Germany, France, Canada, United Kingdom, Hungary, Belgium, Portugal, Mexico, Finland, Israel and Brasil and she has been research leader of numerous research projects. AHM has organized international conferences and has been lecturer in internation schools, conferences and seminars. She has supervised 10 Ph.D. thesis, 6 masters, 2 postdocs and has contributed to the career of excellent researchers as supervisor of Ph.D. thesis and postdocts that have obtained permanent positions in national and international universities and centers of research. AHM is currently member of the Editorial Board of an international Journal and referee of many prestigious journals and has been involved in evaluation of quality of research in numerous committees.