Javier Lafuente
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, rector
Speaker Bio
Javier Lafuente, Rector of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona since November 2020, is Professor in Chemical Engineering in the Department of Engineering, Chemistry and biology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He graduated in Chemical Sciences, specialising in Technical Chemistry, in 1982 and obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering with the qualification cum laude in 1988. He has spent research periods at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
He has been the director of the Technological Centre for the Integral Treatment of Gas Emissions, Liquid Effluent and Solid Waste (BIO-GLS), which forms part of the TECNIO network, and is head of the Biological Treatment of Liquid Effluent and Gases, and Nutrient, Odour and Volatile Organic Compound Elimination (GENOCOV) consolidated research group. The research group he heads has specialised in the development of systems for the biological treatment of liquid, solid and gaseous waste.
He is the author of 141 publications in indexed journals with over 3,500 citations and an h-index of 35, and has directed most of the over 600 national, European and corporate research projects in which he has participated. He has supervised 12 PhD theses and numerous end-of-degree projects. He has also created two environmental spin-offs for the application of cutting-edge technologies for the treatment of waste.
He was director of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 2004 to 2010 and Vice Rector for innovation and Strategi project from 2016 to 2020. He has also coordinated the Chemical Engineering degree and acted as Rector’s delegate at the Escola Universitària Politècnica de Medi Ambient (EUPMA) in Mollet del Vallès. He chaired the Knowledge Transfer and Strategic Projects Committee and has been a member of the research committees for Research, International Relations and Language Policy, and the Doctoral Committee of the UAB Governing Council. He is a member of different committees for teaching evaluation and research projects.