Facundo Ballester Pallarès, graduated in Physics from the University of Valencia (1980) and PhD from the University of Valencia (1986). Currently, she works as full professor (2010), attached to the Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics at the University of Valencia.
He is a member of the Research Unit in Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation IIS Hospital La Fe - University of Valencia (IRIMED). Until 1996, his field of research was experimental nuclear physics. Since 1996, his areas of research focus on the fields of Medical Physics, in Radiotherapy focused on Brachytherapy. In these areas, he has participated in national and international research projects, and has collaborated with companies of this field.
He is a member of the Spanish Society of Medical Physics (SEFM), the American Association of Physicist in Medicine (AAPM), the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTR) and American Brachytherapy Society (ABS), participating in working groups of these societies.

Research: 1) High energies: Experimental high energy physics (1984-2003). Experiments: electron-positron collisions at LEP (Delphi-CERN), Heavy ions (NA38-CERN), Elastic collisions (UA4/2-CERN) and neutrino telescope (Antares). 2) Medical Physics: Experimental dosimetry and brachytherapy.

Research Projects: 13. Publications in magazines: 40.

Teaching: teaching responsibilitiesin all subjects in the area of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics, as well as general subjects in the former degree in Physics and the current degree in Physics at the UVEG. Also in Physics subjects of the bachelor's degree and degree in Chemistry at the UVEG. Participates in teaching innovation projects (Aula Experimenta and Chair Demonstrations, UVEG projects) and scientific dissemination (Expociencia UVEG-CSIC). 

Management: Secretary of the IFIC (1989-1993), Secretary of the FAMN Department ((1999-2002), Director of the FAMN department (2002-2006), member of the Board of the Faculty of Physics in different periods and member of the UVEG Postgraduate Studies Commission (2011-2013).

Biography, Spanish version]

After obtaining a PhD from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, my research has focused on Higgs boson physics at the LHC. I contributed to the first ATLAS search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in the ττ final state and to the combined analyses leading to the Higgs discovery in 2012. I later played a leading role in establishing the Higgs Yukawa coupling to fermions, coordinating the ATLAS analysis that provided evidence for the Higgs coupling to tau leptons and participating in the ATLAS–CMS Run 1 Higgs combination.

During Run 2 and Run 3, I led searches for heavy Higgs bosons in the ττ channel and expanded my research to flavor physics, including lepton-flavor-violating Higgs decays and leptoquark searches. I also contributed to precision Higgs measurements and searches for Higgs boson pair production and self-coupling effects.

Within ATLAS, I have held major leadership roles, including Data Preparation Coordinator, Executive Board member, and Convener of the Tau Group. Since 2006, I have been deeply involved in the operation and upgrade of the Tile Calorimeter, leading the development of the TilePPr digital back-end readout for the HL-LHC, which successfully passed its Final Design Review and it is now in production phase.

I have authored more than 1300 publications and my h-index is 127. I have been PI of seven large research projects and I supervised eight PhD students and five postdoctoral researchers and served as Principal Investigator of several national research projects supporting ATLAS physics and detector upgrades.

She obtained her PhD in Physics from the University of Valencia in 2010. Her doctoral research was carried out jointly at the Institute for Corpuscular Physics (IFIC) and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Stanford, USA), and focused on flavour physics and CP violation in the BaBar experiment. Her work led to the most precise determination of the CKM matrix angle gamma and to a test of lepton universality with implications for supersymmetric models.

She subsequently held a four-year postdoctoral position at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland), where she worked on the LHCb experiment at CERN, contributing to research and development activities aimed at future particle detectors. She later joined IFIC within the framework of the NEXT collaboration, in a position funded by an ERC Advanced Grant, initiating her research activity in neutrino physics. She was awarded a Marie Skłodowska–Curie Fellowship, which she carried out at the University of Texas at Arlington (USA), contributing to the development of techniques to improve the topological signal of the NEXT experiment.

She is currently a Permanent Lecturer (Profesora Permanente Laboral) at the University of Valencia, affiliated with IFIC. She has served as coordinator of the NEXT–DEMO++ project and is Principal Investigator of a project funded by the SJIGENT Programme of Excellence of the Generalitat Valenciana, focused on the application of machine learning techniques to improve topological identification and energy resolution in particle physics detectors. She also participates in the ERC Synergy Grant BOLD, devoted to the development of barium-tagging techniques for neutrino experiments.

She is the author of more than 500 scientific publications in high-impact journals and has made significant contributions to the BaBar, LHCb and NEXT experiments, combining data analysis, detector development and an intense activity in student training. She has also been involved in science outreach activities and in initiatives on equality and diversity, coordinating the IFIC Equality and Diversity Committee for two years.

- Investigadora en el Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), centro mixto del CSIC y la Universidad de Valencia (UV); física experimental de partículas, miembro del experimento ATLAS del Gran Colisionador de Hadrones LHC del CERN

- Docente en el Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear de la UV

- Superviso a varios estudiantes de doctorado, fin de máster y grado - Implicada en actividades de divulgación y de visibilización de la mujer en ciencia

Estudios y experiencia profesional

Licenciada en Física

Máster en Física Avanzada

Doctora en Física

Más de 8 años de experiencia como investigadora postdoctoral en la Universidad de Goettingen (Alemania) y en el CERN (Suiza), el mayor laboratorio de investigación en Física de Altas Energías a nivel mundial, con una beca "CERN Research Fellow". Regresé a Valencia con un proyecto "Junior Leader" de la fundación La Caixa en 2019. Luego fue investigadora Ramón y Cajal (2021-2025) hasta que me estabilicé como Profesora Titular. Participo en varios proyectos de investigación.  

Investigación

- Núm. identificación: ORCID 0000-0003-1113-3645, WoS ID AAQ-7522-2020, SCOPUS 35223818000

- Dos sexenios de investigación reconocidos por la ANECA (1: 2008-2013, 2: 2014-2019)

- Como investigadora del experimento ATLAS (más de 2500 colaboradores) tengo unas 1000 publicaciones, la gran mayoría del primer cuartil. Mi línea de investigación es la física experimental de altas energías, en concreto entender el origen de las masas de las partículas elementales (aquellas ya indivisbles), estudiando las colisiones del LHC. Mi trabajo, en concreto, se centra en el estudio de la interacción del bosón de Higgs, el responsable de la masa de las partículas elementales, con el quark top, la partícula más pesada que se conoce. Este análisis requiere técnicas de Inteligencia Artificial para distinguir la señal y tratamiento estadístico de los datos, con aplicaciones en otros temas de “Big Data” y “Data Science”

- Puestos de responsabilidad en la colaboración científica ATLAS del LHC: Convener of subgroups: Higgs/Top (2021-2023), Modelling of Top Processes (2019-2020), MC Validation (2015-2016), Top Properties (2016-2018), LHC ttH/tH (2017-2021)

- He dirigido 3 tesis doctorales ya defendidas, y en la actualidad estoy dirigiendo otras 3

Premios

- Premio de la Real Sociedad Española de Física - Fundación BBVA: Investigador Novel en Física Experimental 2018

- Leona Woods Distinguished Postdoctoral Lectureship Award 2018, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Nueva York, Estados Unidos

- XV Premio Cientifico-técnico Ciutat d'Algemesí, 2020

- Premios a la Investigación L'Oréal-Unesco "For Women in Science" 2023-24 (edición XVIII)

- XII Premio al Independiente del Año (categoría Ciencia e Investigación), Leganés, 2025

Comisiones y responsabilidades institucionales

- Miembro del Consejo Científico de la Fundación Gadea Ciencia (desde 2022)

- Jurado de los Premios RSEF-BBVA 2022

- Evaluadora de prestigiosas becas y proyectos de la fundación BBVA y de La Caixa, y MSCA de la Unión Europea

- Coordinadora de la Oficina de Jóvenes Investigadores (OJI) del IFIC (2021-2'24)

- Tribunales de tesis doctorales

With regard to indicators of his research career, Dr. Javier Vijande has achieved the maximum number of research merits possible in his field (three). He has supervised six doctoral theses, all of them awarded the distinction of Excellent cum laude. According to the Scopus database, he is the author of 183 publications, most of them in Q1 and Q2 journals, which have accumulated a total of 3,489 citations, with an h-index of 31. Concerning participation in scientific forums, he has been a regular contributor at both national and international conferences, averaging at least one or two international conferences per year, several of them as an invited plenary speaker. His activity is further complemented by numerous research stays at prestigious international institutions and by active collaborations with groups from various organizations.

At present, Dr. Vijande leads a research line focused on medical physics, specifically radiotherapy. He is the head of the Medical Physics Group at the University of Valencia (https://go.uv.es/javia/GIUV-IRIMED), specialized in the application of Monte Carlo simulations to radiotherapy systems, both internal (brachytherapy) and external (teletherapy), with the aim of conducting dosimetric studies in clinical scenarios. Beyond his scientific contributions, this research line has also fostered collaborations with leading companies in the field, resulting in prototypes that are currently commercialized (go.uv.es/javia/Elekta, www.esteya.com, go.uv.es/javia/Inserto, among others).

His international profile is reflected in his active participation in regulatory bodies and major professional societies, particularly the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO). Within the AAPM, he chaired the Working Group on Model-Based Dose Calculation Algorithms in Brachytherapy (2017-2023), of which he remains a member, alongside the Brachytherapy Subcommittee and the Brachytherapy Source Registry Working Group. Since 2024, he has chaired the Working Group on Brachytherapy Dosimetry. These groups are tasked with developing test cases to validate new dose-calculation algorithms in clinical practice, reviewing brachytherapy seeds submitted for inclusion in the AAPM Source Registry (a prerequisite for hospital use), and, more broadly, coordinating clinical practice in brachytherapy within the North American and European contexts.

Within ESTRO, Dr. Vijande is a member of the BRAchytherapy PHYsics Quality Assurance System (BRAPHYQS) working group, where he contributes to the development of European recommendations for calibration, traceability, and clinical use of brachytherapy sources, and serves as a representative in the ESTRO Physics Guidelines Sub-Group. In addition, he has been appointed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as an expert to collaborate in the program of the Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear (IPEN-CNEN/SP, São Paulo) entitled Ensuring High-Quality Production of Brachytherapy Sources for Cancer Treatment.

Nadia Yahlali is a Tenured Professor at the University of Valencia (UV), member of the Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC) and of the IFIC Neutrino group. Her current research focus since year 2022 is neutrino physics with particle accelerator within the DUNE experiment, being involved in the experimental development of the Photon Detection System (PDS) and the cryogenic Temperature Monitoring System (TMS) of the DUNE Far Detectors. She was previously involved in the NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) during years 2011-2022,  and in the SuperNEMO experiment during years 2009-2011, being both experiments dedicated to the neutrinoless doble-beta decay search.

Aside from the neutrino-research projects, she has contributions to experimental nuclear physics and applications of nuclear physics to medicine (radiation dosimetry for brachytherapy) and environmental radioprotection. She was member of the TRITIUM collaboration funded by the European program Interreg SUDOE, during years 2016-2020, for the development and operation of a tritium-in-water monitor for the radiological surveillance of water discharges from nuclear power plants. She was membre of the TAPS (Two-Arms Photon Spectrometer) collaboration during years 1998-2004, for research in subthreshold production of hard photons and neutral pions in heavy ion reactions at GANIL (France) and KVI (The Netherlands). She was also membre of the HADES collaboration at GSI (Darmstadt, Germany) during years 1996-2000, and was responsible for the design and installation of the Time-of-Flight Hodoscopes of the Pion Beam Factory at the GSI accelerator SIS, for experiments with the meson spectrometer HADES.

N. Yahlali obtained her graduation and Master degrees from the University USTHB of Algiers and in 2004 her PhD from the University of Valencia.  She has directed, 10 BCs degree theses, 25 Master theses, 2 completed PhD theses and 2 PhD these in progress. She has 94 publications indexed in Web of Science, and about 40 peer-review records from indexed journals from Elsevier (Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics research A;  Spectrochimica Acta Part A, Physics Letters B), MDPI (Applied Sciences; Particles; Sensors), Oxford University Press (Radiation Protection Dosimetry), IOP Publising (Journal of Instrumentation).

Indicators (WoS)

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2184-0132

Publons Research ID: L-1880-2014

He has a Degree in Physics (1988) and a PhD (1993) from the University of Valencia. He is currently a full professor in the Department of Atomic, Molecular, and Nuclear Physics at the Faculty of Physics. His research has focused on High Energy Physics and Astroparticle Physics. He has worked at CERN in the DELPHI experiment until 1994, where he completed his doctoral thesis, and the ATLAS experiment at the LHC (1995-1997). Since 1998, he has worked in Astroparticle Physics at the ANTARES and KM3NeT neutrino telescopes.

He is the co-author of 201 publications in indexed journals, with 11,117 citations and an h-index of 51. His scientific output averages 310 citations per year. He has been awarded five six-year research evaluation periods (“sexenios”). His main lines of research lie in the physics of neutrino telescopes and include (1) the study of neutrino properties, (2) the detection of astrophysical sources of cosmic neutrinos, and (3) the indirect detection of dark matter. He has participated continuously in more than 50 research projects funded by European, national, and regional governments, contributing to the creation and consolidation of the VEGA research group (Valencia Experimental Group on Astroparticle Physics).

Throughout his career as a university professor, he has taught Physics in the Degree in Chemistry; Mathematical Methods, Numerical Calculus, Nuclear Physics Laboratory and Physics in the Degree in Physics; and Numerical and Statistical Methods and Experimental Techniques in Nuclear and Particle Physics in the Master in Advanced Physics. He has coordinated the organization of the “IFIC Summer Student Programme” since its first edition in 2016. He has six five-year teaching evaluation periods (“quinquenios”).

He has supervised or co-supervised 9 doctoral theses, 10 Master's theses, and 9 Bachelor's theses. He has held various academic management positions, including Head of the Department of Atomic, Molecular, and Nuclear Physics for six years (2012-2018) and Director of the Master's Program in Advanced Physics since 2011.

[Biography, english version]