Researcher Dani Tost and doctoral student Marc Iglesias honoured at "Diada dels Enginyers" 2025

During the Engineers’ Day held on 8 July at the Auditorium of the Vèrtex building on the Diagonal Nord Campus of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Dani Tost Pardell, PhD in Industrial Engineering, professor at the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering (ETSEIB) and CEO of the spin-off Virmedex, received the ‘Academic Career Award’ granted by the Association and the College of Industrial Engineers of Catalonia.

The award recognises Dani Tost's career for her dedication to training and educating future engineers. A researcher in the Department of Computer Science at UPC and at the Research and Innovation in Health Institute (IRIS), Tost currently leads the spin-off Virmedex, a company that transforms the training of healthcare professionals through video games and gamified virtual simulators developed using technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Doctoral thesis from the EEBE awarded

With support from the Caixa d’Enginyers Foundation, a €10,000 grant for the best doctoral thesis was awarded to Marc Iglesias Fernández, from the Barcelona East School of Engineering (EEBE), for the project ‘Mimicking the topography of insect wings to inhibit bone infection’. The jury highlighted its application in the health field and its potential to open new frontiers in the development of bone grafts, not only to prevent infections but also to promote bone regeneration.

The thesis addresses one of the most pressing challenges in modern medicine: antibiotic resistance, and is inspired by nature, specifically the wings of insects, whose surfaces are made up of a series of spikes or protrusions that, when bacteria adhere to them, kill the bacteria within minutes. Iglesias’s aim was to artificially replicate these surfaces on artificial bone to prevent and avoid infections in a clinical context.

In addition, four UPC students have received one of the ‘Young Innovation Awards’, which recognise the best master’s theses from industrial engineering schools in Catalonia. The awarded students were: Aitor Sainz Codes, also from EEBE, for his thesis titled ‘Development of a model for describing the production of NaOH and HCl with EDBM’, in which he adds value to the waste produced by desalination plants; Joan Carles Pagès Sanchís, from ETSEIB, for ‘Development of personalised and physiological musculoskeletal models, actuated by torque, to predict gait with clinical applications’; Míriam Vila Rodríguez, also from ETSEIB, for her thesis ‘Image analysis of underground pipes in Catalonia using AI models’; and Enric Muñío Solé, from the Terrassa School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering (ESEIAAT), for ‘Study and calibration of a failure prediction model in a water distribution network’.

Under the slogan 'Engineering Uncertainty', the annual industrial engineering meeting highlighted the profession as an essential response to the current complex geopolitical context and to unexpected situations such as the blackout that occurred two months ago.

The award winners at the latest Engineers’ Day, held on 8 July at the Auditorium of the Vèrtex building on the Diagonal Nord Campus of the UPC.

Professor and researcher Dani Tost, who received the ‘Academic Career Award’.

Doctoral student Marc Iglesias Fernández, from EEBE, who received a grant for his project ‘Mimicking the topography of insect wings to inhibit bone infection’.