TITLE: Statistics and interdisciplinary: Breaking the line between statistics and literature.

PROFILE: BA in Industrial Technology Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (2011 – 2015) – awarded a First for his degree and final year thesis presented at the European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics Annual Conference (Prague 2015). Ranked 0,5% top marks in Catalunya for the Access to University Examinations (PAU) – he obtained an average mark 9.3/10.

He has been awarded various prizes in relation to his academic excellence such as the 2nd position in the European Final of the European Board of European Students of Technology Engineering Competition (August 2014), where only 100 students out of 5000 make it to the final.

He has interned and is currently working for The Hewlett-Packard Company.

PROJECT: Developing and improving statistical analysis and learning techniques applied to literary analysis and literature in general, especially focusing on developing its artificial intelligence and robotics applications. The MSc in Statistics at Imperial College London provides both theoretical and applied statistics and probability courses, with specific importance given to computational and machine learning tools. This MSc will provide the best tools to develop and enhance the relationship between statistics and literature and its practical applications.

TITLE: Land-use changes and other changes in the surroundings of British and Spanish airports: a GIS approach.
PROFILE: BA in Geography at Universidad Complutense de Madrid – he received the First National Award for Excellence in Academic Performance (2008).
MA in Geography and Advanced Studies at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2009 – 2010) – he received a distinction for his thesis.
Current PhD candidate in Geography at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
He has been a research assistant at different institutions such as the Royal Geography Society of Madrid, University Foundation Oriol-Urquijo and Universidad Complutense de Madrid, as well as for various projects centred on tourism and urbanisation.
He has published many articles and papers on urbanisation and airports on various peer-reviewed journals.
He has been a visiting researcher at University of Texas, New York University and Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (New Mexico).
He has teaching experience at undergraduate and graduate levels.
PROJECT: Relations between urban dynamics and airports are an observable reality since the establishment of the first airfield in the early twentieth century. In addition to amplifying economic power in metropolitan areas, it can also be observed that airports overlap in the city, from both a functional and morphological perspective.
Additional activities related to connectivity are developed in the surroundings: hotels, business-parks, multinational headquarters, etc. This phenomenon has not been sufficiently studied in the academic literature.
This research, therefore, assesses the economic footprint on airports in selected cities (London and Madrid), and analyses land use and other changed that occur around these mega-infrastructures.

TITLE: Engineering the betalain biosynthesis pathway in brewer´s yeast (Sccharomyces cerevisiae) and other bio-industrial hosts.
PROFILE: BSc in Biotechnology at Universitat Politècnica de Valencia. Current research student at the Department of Plant Sciences at University of Cambridge. He has interned at the Departments of Plant Sciences, Physiology and Neuroscience at University of Cambridge, as well as at the Department of Biochemistry at University of Valencia and the Mexican National Institute for High Reproductive Technology.
He has collaborated with the Academic Institute for the Conservation and Breeding of Valencian Agrospecies as well as with the Department of Cellular Biology and Parasitology at University of Valencia.
PROJECT: Betalain pigments are plant compounds showing a wide variety of potential applications in the pharmaceutical, agricultural and food industry. Betalains can act as potent antioxidant, anti‐cancer, anti‐microbial molecules, as well as enhance plant tolerance to adverse environmental conditions such as lack of water or high salt. Given these benefits, it is important to further understand the biosynthetic pathways leading to betalain production and accumulation in plants and how this knowledge can be used to engineer new industrial production hosts using model organisms like brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or bacteria (Escherichia coli), as well as new promising mechanisms for crop resistance in the frame of an ongoing environmental change.
The project is aimed to achieve the production of a functional natural compound in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a microorganism with more than a century of history with Mahou since its origins in 1890. On the other hand, the food industry is witnessing a growing interest in the field of functional food, combining nourishment and health improvement in the same products. Supporting the creation of strains of yeast with the capacity of producing beneficial compounds would translate into a new way of promoting society’s progress and welfare with the same common tools the company has been using for its own products.

TITLE: Forging a magic bullet: self-assembled nano-vesicles as a universal drug carrier for targeted therapy.
PROFILE: BSc in Biotechnology at Universidad de Barcelona – he was awarded a Distinction in his study on Prokaryotic Genetic Engineering. Current PhD student at BSc in Biotechnology at Universidad de Barcelona – he was awarded a Distinction in his study on Prokaryotic Genetic Engineering. Current PhD student at University of Oxford in Condensed Matter Physics. He was a visiting student in Bioengineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a research attendant at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Harvard-MIT Health & Science Technology). He has published articles on various peer-reviewed journals and presented his research at international conferences.
Active member of CERU/SRUK. Fluent in French, English and Catalan.
PROJECT: My Cell-Derived Vesicles (CDVs) are a modular and universal delivery system to treat a huge spectrum of diseases, such as cancer or genetic disorders.
Chemotherapy drugs, proteins, and nucleic acids have a vast potential to treat human diseases. However, they have to reach the site of disease, get inside the right type of cell, while avoiding destruction by the immune system, the human body’s defences. To tackle these challenges, I have created nano-vesicles inspired by nature. These containers are obtained from living cells, which allow me to control the cargo that is loaded and in which cell they get internalised.

TITLE: The establishment and role of the British Council in post-war Spain.
PROFILE: Graduated with distinction at the British Council School in Madrid. BA History at University of York – her project was awarded the highest grade in the History Department. MPhil in International Relations at Oxford – Distinction awarded for her MPhil thesis on Spain and NATO. She is one of the few doctoral researchers who has been asked to teach and lecture at Oxford. Her series Spain: 1959-1992 is the only paper on the History and Politics of Spain at the University. She has attended various international conferences representing Oxford (European Parliament and NATO headquarters amongst them) and has presented her work there.
She was an advisor at the President’s Office (La Moncloa) during her Mphil, where she had to oversee the G20’s Spanish-lead project on renewable energy and energy efficiency. In addition to that, she helped organize the G20 sherpa meeting in Seville. She worked as an intern at the Club of Madrid, the world’s largest forum of former Presidents and Prime Ministers aimed at fostering democracy and also interned at Le Vésinet’s Town Hall in Paris, France.
PROJECT: “What was needed in Spain was an institution which would create sound tradition of English teaching and establish cultural relations between scientists, historians and men of letters as well as between students of the two countries, an institution which would be a genuine home of English life and… a centre of British Humanism. “ Walter Starkie, first British Institute in Madrid Director, 1948.
The British Institute in Madrid was set up seventy-five years ago in August 1940. Despite this important anniversary, the reasons behind the foundation of the British Council’s only school remain relatively unknown. This study hopes to address the gap in the literature by suggesting that the purpose of the British Institute in Madrid’s foundation was to counter Nazi German and Fascist Italian propaganda, keep Spain out of the Second World War, and help Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services win the war.

TITLE: The superposition of drama and criticism in the Hispanic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays.
PROFILE: Current PhD candidate at Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Drama Studies. MA in English Literature and Theatre Studies at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2008) BA in Spanish Philology at Universidad de Guanajuato (2004 – 2008). She has published articles in both books and various peer-reviewed online literaty journals. She has participated in a variety of international conferences dealing with Hispanoamerican and English literature.
She has received several awards related to her research and academic excellence, such as the publishing of a collection of her poems La memoria de los Días after winning the XX Literary Contest “Universidad de Zaragoza” modality poetry in Spanish (2008). She has held various teaching positions at Universidad de Guanajato.
PROJECT: As a part of my PhD program of Drama Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid, I expect to have a research period in the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, as an academic visitor from August 1^st to November 30^th 2016.
The title of my thesis is “The superposition of drama and criticism in The Shakespearean adaptations. The case of Hamlet, por ejemplo by Hector Mendoza” and my research area is the study of the Williams Shakespeare’s adaptations in the Spanish-­‐speaking countries during the 20^th Century and their cultural assimilation of Shakespeare’s plays.

TITLE: Bringing cultures together through music.
PROFILE: BA in Music and Artist Programme in Performance at Guildhall School of Music and Drama (2014 – 2016). BA in Violin and Piano at Conservatorio Superior de Música in Asturias (2008 – 2012). Higher Education in Violin and Piano at Conservatorio Profesional de Música in Oviedo (2003 – 2008).
She has participated in numerous competitions and has received several awards for her performances, such as First Prize for the II competition of chamber music at Conservatory of Music Oviedo and selected to represent Asturias at the Spanish IV Certamen de Interpretación – competition Orfeo Foundation. She was also selected to tour in Switzerland and South Korea with group The Barokers.
She has performed with different orchestras both in England and Spain, as well as with several baroque ensembles in The Mozart in London Festival or The Victoria & Albert Museum. She has violin and piano teaching experience both in London and Asturias. She is fluent in English and Italian.
PROJECT: My project aims to bring innovative chamber music performances to children who are studying Spanish in London schools as well as those studying at the Spanish Institutes in the city. These Interactive Performances will explore, in an engaging and entertaining way, the historical and cultural links between Spain and England through a musical journey.
In order to do so, two specific pieces of two composers from the same musical period will be chosen, one English and one Spanish. The entry point –or general musical concept that we will explore throughout the entire Interactive Performance- will be a common music feature that both composers present in each of their compositions. The outcome of these Interactive Performances will be to explain how both composers achieved the same musical feature in a similar or opposed way, which will contribute to the overall understanding of cultural links through music.

The ARTES Coll & Cortés 2016 Travel Scholarship was awarded to Andrés BUSTAMANTE, MPhil in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
The 2016 Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Prize, sponsored by the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain, was awarded to Leah McBride, PhD candidate at Glasgow University.
The runner-up prize was awarded to Annabel Rowntree, PhD candidate at Oxford University.