Fitxa persona

Fernando J. Ballesteros is an astronomer, astrobiologist, and specialist in complex systems. He received his PhD in Physics from the Universitat de València in 1996 and was awarded the Cozzarelli Prize of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2026 for his research on the origin of complex life.

He has developed most of his scientific career at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Valencia, where he served as Head of Instrumentation from 2013 to 2022. He contributed to the development of instrumentation for the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL mission and for LEGRI aboard the Spanish Minisat-01 satellite. His research later shifted towards complex systems and astrobiology, developing analytical methods based on network theory and addressing questions related to the origin of complexity in nature, the physics of life, and the habitability of exoplanets.

Alongside his research activities, he has maintained an extensive commitment to science communication. He has published more than one hundred popular science articles in a variety of media, including the journal Mètode, where he writes the column Nau espacial. He is the author of around twenty popular science books, including Gramáticas extraterrestres, winner of the European Science Communication Award Estudi General (2006); Fractales y Caos, la aventura de la complejidad, winner of the Prisma Science Communication Award (2016); ET Talk (Springer); 10.000 años mirando estrellas (Alianza Editorial); Astrobiología, un puente entre el Big Bang y la Vida (Akal); Las mujeres de la Luna (NextDoor); The Women of the Moon (Oxford University Press); and A la Luna de Valencia (PUV).

He has also written scripts for several science documentaries, including Eclipses y Tránsitos, winner of the Ciencia en Acción Award (2007); Hágase la masa, distinguished by the Spanish National Centre for Particle Physics (2013); and Arco de choque, winner of an international award at the SciOn Festival in Reno, Nevada (USA), in 2016. He was also co-author of the Spanish National Radio programme Los Sonidos de la Ciencia (2005-2008) and has served on the editorial board of the Bulletin of the Spanish Astronomical Society since 2011.