Ignacio Pagonabarraga studied at the University of Barcelona where he obtained his PhD in Physics in non-equilibrium statistical physics. He performed postdoctoral stays at Instituut AMOLF (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and the University of Edinburgh (Scotland, UK) and moved back to Barcelona. He is Professor of Physics at the Department of Condensed Matter Physics since 2011. He is a member of UBICS — the University of Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems. He served as Director of CECAM in the period 2017–2022.
His research focuses on the theoretical understanding of soft matter systems out of equilibrium, with particular interest in collective phenomena in active matter — aiming at reaching fundamental new understanding of the mechanics and emerging behaviour in such systems. He develops and exploits novel computational methods to study these complex, heterogeneous dynamic systems.
The full career path is in the timeline below.