Our staff
Prof. David Gascón
D. Gascon received a BSc degree in electronics engineering from University Ramon Llull, Spain, in 1998, and a PhD degree in electronics from University of Barcelona, Spain in 2008.
Currently he is working in the instrumentation group of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), Spain. He is also the Technical Coordinator of the ICCUB.
His research activity is in the area of mixed signals circuits for high energy physics, astrophysics experiments and medical imaging. Particularly, he is interested in ASIC design for fast photodetector readout and front-end electronics. He has authored or co-authored more than 60 papers related to these subjects.
Dr. Rafael Ballabriga
Rafael Ballabriga is a graduate of the Ramon Llull University in Barcelona (BSc 2000, MSc 2002). In 2004, he joined CERN microelectronics group, Geneva (Switzerland), in the framework of the CERN Doctoral Student Program to work in the design and characterization of hybrid pixel detectors.
Rafael Ballabriga received the IEEE NPSS Best Student Paper Award in 2006. He defended his PhD thesis entitled “The Design and Implementation in 0.13um CMOS of an Algorithm Permitting Spectroscopic Imaging with High Spatial Resolution for Hybrid Pixel Detectors” in 2009 for which he received the best thesis award of the Ramon Llull university doctoral programme 2009-2010. In 2013 he received the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Radiation Instrumentation Early Career Award.
Rafael Ballabriga has experience in hybrid pixel detectors, monolithic radiation detectors and design of readout chips for the readout of fast timing detectors. He has coached younger designers in the design of front-ends in CMOS technologies. Holds three patents and has authored or co-authored more than 70 peer-reviewed journal publications.
Dr. Joan Mauricio
Joan Mauricio has been collaborating in the LHCb experiment (CERN) since 2012. In 2014, he joined the Technology Unit of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences from Universitat de Barcelona (ICC-UB).
In 2015 he received the PhD in electronics engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. He has participated in the design and test of 4 integrated circuits (FlexToT, MUSIC, MATRIX and HR-FlexToT) specialized in SiPM readout and fast timing medical imaging applications. Apart from the satisfactory scientific output, these designs have resulted in 3 patents and the technology transfer to the industry.
Dr. Sergio Gomez
Dr. Sergio Gomez received his M.S. degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, in 2009.
He spent one year researching about Wireless Mesh Networks at King’s College London. Dr. Gómez obtained his PhD degree in Electronics from at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in October 2014 with a qualification of Excellent Cum Laude.
From May 2014, he started working with the instrumentation team at the Institute of Cosmos Science from the Physics Faculty at Universitat de Barcelona (ICCUB). His main work includes the design and testing of ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) for the readout of photodetectors sensors. He has published several research articles in international journals, presented several papers in prestigious conferences and he obtained two patents. Moreover, he is an associate professor at the Electronics department in the University of Barcelona.
Dr. David Sánchez
David Sánchez is finishing his PhD in Medical Imaging detectors. He has 6 years of experience in both PhotoMultiplier Tubes and Silicon Photodetectors, extensively used in High Energy Physics and Medical Imaging.
In addition, he has a strong background in scintillator crystals and light sources such as pico and nanosecond pulsed lasers. Finally, he acquired good expertise in the usage of toolkits for physics simulation including GATE and GEANT4.
Núria Egidos
Nuria Egidos is a member of the FastICpix team, contributing to the design of a highly accurate clock distribution network to provide very fine time resolution, and which should be adaptable to the various target operation scenarios.
The network is implemented using digital design and verification methodologies, and I also benefit from the experience on pixelated detectors acquired in my former affiliation to CERN, as a member of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) “STREAM”.
José María Fernández-Tenllado
After receiving his M.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 2017, he joined University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and CERN (EP-ESE-ME) as a Ph.D. student.
His research interest lies in the design of low jitter and power-efficient analog front-ends for Time-of-Flight detectors, particularly applied to medical imaging and particle physics. He is contributing to the FastICPix project in the systematic analysis for optimum pixel segmentation factors, as well as in the pixel front-end design.
Rafael Manera
Rafel Manera obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering in 2014. He also obtained a Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering in 2018.
In 2017, he joined the Technology Unit of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences from Universitat de Barcelona (ICC-UB). Since 2019 he is a PhD student in Electronics Engineering at Universitat de Barcelona. He is participating in the design of an integrated circuit (FastIC) specialized SiPM readout and fast timing applications.
Franco N. Bandi
Franco N. Bandi received the B.Sc. degree in industrial electronic engineering from the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain, in 2014, and the M.Sc. degree in microelectronics from the University of Seville, Spain, in 2016.
He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in physical science and technologies with the University of Seville. His doctoral research is focused on digital silicon photomultipliers for nuclear medicine imaging. His research interests include the design of smart image sensors, sub- nanosecond time to digital converters and low jitter single photon avalanche diodes in CMOS technologies.