I am an Engineer in Biotechnologies graduated from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, INSA, Toulouse, France. I hold a Master Degree in Biochemistry and a Master Degree in Animal Physiology from the Université Paul Sabatier of Toulouse, France. My PhD Dissertation that I defended at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, ULPGC, Spain, was on Sperm Whale Acoustics and Noise pollution. I was a Research Assistant at the San Francisco State University, California, an Intern Scientist at The Marine Mammal Centre, California and an Associate Professor at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, España.
I am currently a full Professor at the Technical University of Catalonia, BarcelonaTech (UPC) and the Founder and Director of the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB).
My research includes the development of Acoustic Technologies for the control of noise pollution in the marine environment; the study of the biological and pathological impact of noise pollution on cetacean (whales and dolphins) acoustic pathways and marine organisms, particularly marine invertebrates; the mathematical, physical, morpho- and electro-physiological mechanisms of the cetacean bio-sonar as well as the extraction of the information from their acoustic signals.
I am a leading member of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Working Group on Noise and an author of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Good Environmental Status (MSFD-GES).
I am a member of the ASCOBANS and ACCOBAMS Noise Expert Group, a member of the World Ocean Council (WOC) sound expert group and a member of the ISO/TC43/SC3/WG2 Bioacoustics Expert group.
I am a past-Chair of the European Cetacean Society (2003-2007) and I am currently, since 2005, Chair of its Science Advisory Committee.
I received the Rolex Awards for Enterprise in 2002 for the development of technical solutions to balance human marine interests and the conservation of ocean ecosystems, in particular whales and dolphins. I hold the Felix Wankel Prize (Ludwig Maximillians University of Münich, Germany, 1999) that acknowledged my applied research for the protection of sperm whales. In 1998, I received the Young Researcher Award from the Complutense University, Spain, modality Environment. In 2017, I received the National Research Award from the Spanish Geographical Society
I founded in 2010, SONSETC, Making Sense of Sounds, a spin-off of the Technical University of Catalonia, BarcelonaTech, aimed at accompanying the offshore industries in their effort to be environmentally responsible by limiting the effects of the noise associated to their activities.
I am the Founder and President of The Sense of Silence Foundation, a charity created in November 2014. The Sense of Silence Foundation objective is to provide passive acoustic tools for the conservation of wild fauna in remote areas where its life is threatened. While the science behind The Sense of Silence Foundation is continuously developed by the LAB, The Sense of Silence Foundation is exclusively concentrating its effort on wild life conservation. Its funding comes from donations and its board is responsible of identifying areas where to deploy The Sense of Silence acoustic stations to provide Nature with benevolent protective tools.
I am the co-Founder and co-Director of Ear to the Wild Foundation, a non-profit organisation created in India to promote national actions for the conservation of wildlife by using sounds, images and remote control tracking technologies, as well as state-of-the-art communication methods, capable of live monitoring biodiversity and of detecting the presence of endangered animals in aquatic areas as well as on land
