Manel Perucho.

The Principal of the Universitat de València, Juan Luis Gandía, named Manel Perucho Pla as the new director of the Astronomical Observatory of the Universitat de València. Perucho, professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics in the UV replaces José Antonio Muñoz Lozano in this position.

Manel Perucho assumes direction with the aim to increase the observation resources that are available for the Valencian astronomical community. Heading the Observatory implies a new boost for this benchmark entity in the field of astronomy. In this frame, Perucho highlighted that “thanks to many people’s effort, it is time for this centre to become also a benchmark centre for research on astrophysics in an international level.” Besides, he underlined that he intends to “strengthen the connection already existing with the university community and the general public.”

Perucho is doctor in Physics by the Universitat de València and he teaches in the Degree in Physics and in the Master’s degree in Advanced Physics at this institution. He has supervised seven doctoral theses and multiple undergraduate and master’s degree final projects. He has over a hundred articles published in journals in the fields of astrophysics and he is the principal investigator in the High Energy and Relativistic Astrophysics Group.

He has done research stays in different centres especially in the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Würzburg. Within his lines of work, he has a wide experience in the analysis of relativistic plasmas, which are generated in the environment of black holes in active galaxies or binary stars, apart from its impact on the evolution of the galaxies and galaxy clusters. His studies include a side based on the use of supercomputing to create numeric simulations of astrophysical scenarios, and other observational side.

Apart from his research activity, Perucho is a renowned scientific disseminator. In this sense, he has published articles in different journals and in the Univers Violent blog by the Mètode journal. He is also the author of the Ecos de l’univers violent (Bromera y Publicacions de la Universitat de València) book, in which he explains different high-energy astrophysical scenarios and relate them to life development in the universe.

Manel perucho was secretary and vice-dean of the Faculty of Physics between 2018 and 2022, and he held other positions of responsibility since 2013. Between 2022 and 2026 he has been the head of the Languages Policy Service at the UV, where he participated in the development of the Agreement for the promotion of multilingualism, approved in 2025.

The Astronomical Observatory of the Universitat de València is in charge for research, teaching, and culture dissemination in the field of Astronomy. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest university observatory in service of Spain.