Freedom, focus and learning: Pablo’s story

"If I had to describe the eScience Center's culture I would say: social anomaly. I enjoy the freedom, the trust and the way we interact and inspire each other on a daily basis. It is hard to find such a big group of highly motivated, brilliant people."

It’s hard to find such a big group of highly motivated, brilliant people, says Pablo. But he’s found it at the eScience Center.

I was born and raised in Guadalajara, a town in central Spain. I graduated in Theoretical Physics and got my PhD in Applied Mathematics. In between, I worked for 3 years as an engineer for the optical industry. What I like about physics and mathematics is the problem-solving side of it. Even when studying theoretical concepts, you are expected to follow along with pen and paper. It makes studying a very active and rewarding task, creating a sense of wonder, discovery and somehow even ownership of the new concepts learned.   

It is hard to pinpoint my expertise to a single topic. I have worked in lens design, predator-prey dynamics, sleep-wake models, potential theory, computational fluid dynamics and remote detection via satellite. Additionally I have been doing semi-professional scientific communication since 2011, mainly via short essays and live talks. You could say that I’m addicted to focus and to learning. I believe that the two best ways to learn something are to explain it to someone else and to ‘teach’ a computer how to do it.  

I enjoy the freedom, the trust and the way we interact and inspire each other on a daily basis.

At the moment, I’m coordinating and developing a project about satellite imagery processing. The goal is to study the recovery of rainforests after big fires. I’m also involved in a project about the aerodynamics of wind turbines. We are implementing a novel algorithm that allows calculations to be distributes among many processors.  Last, but not least, I am devoting a significant amount of my time to teaching and science communication. In projects I always try to be as pedagogical as possible. Extensively documenting my code, explaining my design choices and taking time to teach the tools. Showing researchers of other disciplines that computing is not (only) a nerd’s thing is something I try to bring to every activity I undertake.  

If I had to describe the eScience Center’s culture I would say: social anomaly. I enjoy the freedom, the trust and the way we interact and inspire each other on a daily basis. It is hard to find such a big group of highly motivated, brilliant people.

– Pablo Rodríguez-Sánchez, Research Software Engineer