Passionate about technology and how human beings interact with it. Since 2008, I have been focused on innovation and research projects, usually working with multidisciplinary teams within international consortia.
My career combines project management and R&D&I consulting with academic research and the provision of specialized services in usability, UX, UCD, and human-technology interaction. I am particularly interested in artificial intelligence and its application in contexts where interaction can lead to drastic or high-impact consequences.
I have participated in innovation and research initiatives backed by private, public, and mixed funding structures. In recent years, my focus has shifted heavily toward European-scale frameworks, having directly participated in more than 25 projects (including FP7, H2020, and Horizon Europe programs) alongside assisting multiple companies as an external consultant.
Before you continue reading, I would like to note that I use this space to share my experience through an extensive narrative using a personal, approachable style. If you are looking for a quick, concise resume reference with a standard corporate focus, this specific section might not be what you need. Instead, you can find direct links to my LinkedIn and my ORCID profiles for a quick overview.
My first contact with computing happened in my early childhood with a 128KB ZX Spectrum +2—which I still keep, though its box is quite battered—that my dear father brought home. I distinctly remember the waiting times for games to load and how imagination bridged the gap between what appeared on the screen and the magnificent illustrations on the covers. Beyond gaming, I took my first steps in programming using BASIC, writing code filled with “GO TO” statements.
I was also fortunate that my school, the Liceo Anglo Español (now unfortunately closed), provided us with computing classes from a very young age. We had a computer room filled with what must have been 386 machines, where we tinkered with MS-DOS, office software of the era, and drew layouts using ASCII characters.
As a teenager, I became interested in Visual Basic. With the arrival of dial-up internet at home, it was inevitable that I would dive into web programming, first with HTML and later with PHP. We are talking about the years when you had to warn your entire family that you were going to connect to the internet so nobody would pick up the landline phone and cut your connection. Fortunately, upon entering university, I managed to convince my parents to get ADSL at home so I could play—I mean, program—in peace.
At university, you work with a wide array of programming languages, but during my time there, web development languages were mostly left out of the standard curriculum, let alone finding anything related to usability or digital accessibility. We even had to set up virtual machines running Windows 95 to complete certain practical assignments, though at least that gave us early experience handling virtualized environments.
I continued learning web programming on my own and built a few paid websites, some solo and others alongside my close friend David Baños, creator of Geektopia and its Abydos CMS—a project and a friendship that remain active today.
I was fortunate enough to come across the book “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug, a legendary guide on web usability principles. It completely immersed me in user interaction, usability, and how to properly integrate these concepts into software development workflows.
For a period, I developed a strong interest in digital accessibility, which led me to program a mobile music game (during the early days of Android and late stages of J2ME-Symbian) fully accessible for visually impaired individuals. This project won an award in a competition hosted by my university.
During my university years, it was common for engineering students to enter the workforce before graduating, which often delayed final graduation. Thanks to my knowledge of usability and project workflows, I was hired to manage an international web initiative for a payment methods corporation, which was building an innovative platform backed by several banks and savings institutions.
It was a wonderful experience where I learned immensely. I began navigating high-uncertainty projects, managing multidisciplinary teams, and dealing with environments full of stakeholders holding diverse, sometimes conflicting interests.
I presented my final degree thesis on web usability thinking I would never step foot inside a university again. However, upon completion, several members of the evaluation panel presented me with an unexpected challenge: staying at the institution to work on European research projects while pursuing a PhD.
The salary was considerably lower than in the private sector, but the opportunity appealed to me, so I accepted. Around five years later, I supplemented my technical engineering background with a full bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, a PhD, and active participation in a long list of international research and innovation projects. My doctorate was awarded “Cum Laude” with an international mention following two research stays: one at the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas in Colombia, and another at the Open University of the Netherlands. These stays allowed me to deepen my research into human-technology interaction and publish several papers.
While most PhD candidates in European research projects focused solely on technical execution, I expanded my role into project management, proposal drafting, and administrative financial justification. This matured my interest in project workflows, leading me to study PMP, agile frameworks, and traditional mandatory public methodologies like MÉTRICA (V3). Academically, I also collaborated by teaching software engineering subjects and designing university extension courses.
The experience gained as a university researcher allowed me to build an attractive profile for R&D&I consulting firms. Typically, companies shy away from profiles that have spent extended periods in academia or pure research, but I already held practical enterprise innovation experience prior to my doctoral phase.
I had not merely focused on theoretical studies; I was actively executing and leading international projects. I had worked alongside varied institutions across different countries, mastered European project guidelines (including final defenses and audits), and possessed internal insights regarding the partners and clients that consultancies interact with. My knowledge of usability, UCD, interaction, and project management proved to be cross-cutting assets applicable to almost any sector.
I worked as an R&D&I manager and consultant across multiple firms in Catalonia and Madrid, traveling extensively for client evaluations and European consortium meetings. During this stage, I specialized deeply in technical and administrative financial justifications, creating a structured methodology to prepare corporate frameworks for H2020 and Horizon Europe project audits.
I trained in corporate tax deductions for innovation, obtained an Internal Auditor certification for R&D&I Management Systems (UNE 166002) via Bureau Veritas, and completed the corporate R&D&I incentives management program with the Spanish Quality Association (EQA). I have regularly collaborated with EQA as an expert evaluator for public and private R&D&I proposal calls.
A major highlight of this phase was my tenure as Innovation Director at COMET—a firm I still collaborate with. Within the first five years of our relationship, we successfully joined as direct partners in 15 research initiatives (mostly European scale), alongside securing a substantial number of publicly and privately funded projects for our client portfolio.
Teaching is a core passion of mine, and student satisfaction metrics consistently reflect strong results. While I previously balanced teaching with corporate management through minor roles (sporadic courses, thesis supervision, or a single subject per semester), my focus shifted in 2021. I joined the foundational project of what is now the Higher Polytechnic School of Technology and Science at UCJC. I moved from an adjunct role to faculty research coordinator, and currently serve as the vice-director of the school and director of the degree in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
In the summer of 2023, I chose to transition my corporate consulting activities into an independent freelance model. This structure provides the necessary flexibility to offer direct specialized services to companies and institutions requiring targeted expertise.
Managing academic institutional responsibilities alongside independent consulting requires precise planning and a high degree of effort. However, my freelance consulting remains directly tied to the innovation, research, and technical subjects I teach at the university, allowing both areas to mutually reinforce one another.
The subjects I lecture require a continuous link to current industry trends and active professional practices. This perspective is fully shared by my university, which values deep corporate integration as a high-yield asset for students who are being trained to become the professionals of the future.
IEEE | Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
ACM | Member of the Association for Computing Machinery & SIGCHI (Computer-Human Interaction) Chapter.
AIPO | Member of the Asociación Interacción Persona-Ordenador (Spanish Human-Computer Interaction Association).
PhD | Information and Knowledge Engineering (Cum Laude, International Mention), Universidad de Alcalá.
Master’s Degree | e-Learning and Social Networks, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja.
Bachelor’s Degree | Information Systems, Universidad de Alcalá.
Technical Engineering Degree | Management Informatics, Universidad de Alcalá.
Internal Auditor | R&D&I Management Systems UNE 166002, Bureau Veritas Formación.
Incentives Management | R&D&I Corporate Incentives Training Program, Asociación Española de la Calidad (EQA).
ANECA Accreditations | Accredited Associate Professor (Profesor Contratado Doctor) and Private University Professor, National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation.
Project Management | Specialized certifications and coursework across AGILE, Scrum, PMP, and PM2 frameworks.
My peer-reviewed research papers covering interaction and usability can be tracked directly via Google Scholar. For industrial, marketing, or simplified breakdowns of these high-impact publications, you can visit the “Articles” section of this website.
If you have an idea, are facing a major challenge, or want to evaluate your product or service to improve it, tell me about it and let’s get started.
