Daniel Crespo, new rector and president of the CIT UPC

10/06/2021

Physics full professor Daniel Crespo Artiaga took office as rector of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) on 7 June. The UPC rector is also president of the UPC Technology Center (CIT UPC).

Daniel Crespo (Barcelona, 1959) has been a lecturer at the UPC since 1987 and full professor of Physics since 2010. From age 14 to 25, he combined studies and working in the private sector. He has a degree in Physics from the University of Barcelona (1984) and a doctoral degree from the UPC (1994). He has taught physics at the Barcelona School of Civil Engineering (ETSECCPB), physics and thermodynamics at the Castelldefels School of Telecommunications and Aerospace Engineering (EETAC), solid state at the Barcelona School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSETB) and physics at the Barcelona East School of Engineering (EEBE).

From the research group in Computational Fluid Dynamics, he started his first doctoral thesis on the study of dynamics of fluids confined between rotating cylinders, directed by professor Francesc Marquès and submitted in 1994. His main line of research is focused on the mechanical properties, the physical stability (relaxation and crystallisation processes) and the chemical stability (corrosion resistance) of amorphous metals. He has published over 100 articles in scientific journals and has supervised 10 doctoral theses. Since 1998, he has been principal investigator of successive funding projects of the National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation, and a European Community ERA-Net project. He directed a fluid mechanics technology transfer project in 2004.

Daniel Crespo coordinated the doctoral degree in Aerospace Science and Technology and was deputy director of the  Department of Applied Physics and twice deputy director of the EETAC. Between 2011 and 2015, he was director of the Department of Applied Physics; a period in which he participated in implemented the bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics. Together with lecturer Jordi José, he managed the merger of the two departments that led to the current Department of Physics, of which he was director between 2016 and 2019. In this period, he promoted the creation of the master’s degree in Engineering Physics. Between 2019 and 2021, he was president of the UPC Board of Teaching and Research Staff.