During 2019, I lived in the extraordinary city of Barcelona to continue my studies in the theoretical MSc degree in Particle Physics and Gravitation. It was a successful year that fed all my curiosity regarding the fundamentals of Particle Physics.

From the CMB to the Standard Model. From the galaxies and stars to the elementary particles. I tasted the most recent theories that explain both the biggest and smallest expressions of matter.

During my master thesis, I developed a simple model to investigate the environments that are created after Heavy Ion Collisions.

A few highligths from Barcelona

I joined the so called Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia (CVG). There is a Catalan tradition consisting of teams of dozens of members working together to rise tall human towers. There is no castell without the cooperation, organization, trust and support.

In their words, they do not compete against other teams, but they act. Local festivities or weekends usually include these activities and there are assaigs during the week in order to practice the different Castells.

And then, the mountains

I had never enjoyed the mountains during my childhood and teenager period due to my football background and tight schedules in weekends. In Barcelona, the proximity of the Catalan Pyrennes opened an opportunity. I regularly joined for hikes during which a seed for this passion was planted.

Bastiments (2881  m), located in the frontier between Catalonia and France.

Global training in a foreign country: France

After the MSc degree, I needed to change my career direction. I applied to a scholarship called "Global training", provided by the Basque government. The link to the webpage can be found here.

They awarded me the grant and I joined SPINTEC laboratory (Grenoble, France) as an internship student for the first semester of 2020.

I worked under the supervision of Olivier Boulle in the optimization of thin films in order to host magnetic skyrmions.

... and Covid-19 came

The lockdown kept me in Grenoble in order to not lose the grant. I lived and worked in a 14 square meter room during those months. The uncertainties were overcome by the dedication and help of my supervisor who proposed me to continue in the group during three more years for a PhD thesis project.

Before the thesis

The paperwork and the administration procedure by CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) took longer than expected. Another lockdown was set in November 2020, so I could only start my thesis in December 2020.