Javier Rivero

My passion for science led me to study a bachelor degree on mechanical engineering for its combination of physics and math oriented to industrial applications. During this period, fluid mechanics drew my attention to the plethora of phenomena involving multiple scales and strongly nonlinear (and sometimes unstable) behaviours, which requires advanced knowledge of maths. When I came back from my Erasmus at TUM (Technishe Universität München), I wrote my bachelor thesis on fluid-structure interactions.

Once I already was an engineer, I got engaged in a project devoted to the simulation of the electrospinning technique, whose goal is to produce very thin fiber by means of electric fields. It was the topic of my PhD, thanks to which I have deepen my knowledge on maths and physics. This knowledge gave me the possibility to work at the ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles), where I have studied different phenomena involving fluid mechanics together with surface tension, heat/mass transfer, etc. I am currently carrying out simulations on a microfluidic device at ULB.

The experience I have acquired during this years is of crucial importance to succesfully face any modelling task. In the end, once the entire simulation process has been carried out for different technologies, from the choice of numerical schemes or model, over choice of the software, implementation or meshing to interpretation of results, one can be considered a simulation expert.