Rafael Acebrón is one of the founders of AURA. He obtained the Master Degree in Electronic System Engineering and the Electronic Engineer Degree at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
His research interest includes robotics, electronics and the development of medical devices. His past research and experience includes mobile social robots and mechatronics design and control systems.
Marie Destarac is the Project Manager & Quality Control of AURA. She has obtained the Engineer degree in Electronics from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (Guatemala) and the M.Sc. and the Ph.D in Robotics and Automation from the Technical University of Madrid (Spain). Her current research interest includes human musculoskeletal modeling, rehabilitation robotics and adaptive control systems.
She has more than 10 years working in R&D medtech projects in Guatemala, Japan and Spain, and has contributed with more than 15 articles reported in conferences and in indexed journals listed in the JCR. Marie received the “Innovators Under 35-Central America” award from the MIT Technology Review in 2015. In that year, she also obtained one of the "Doctorados Industriales" grants, afforded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain, to perform her doctoral research.
Ricardo Espinoza is one of the cofounders of AURA and a PhD student in the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. His current areas of interest are in healthcare robotics, service robotics, controls systems, mechanical design, mechanism synthesis and industrial automation. Ricardo has ten years of experience on the industry, working in manufacturing and maintenance. He received his mechanical engineering degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 2008 and the MSc. degree in automation and robotics from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in 2013.
Jorge García is a Mechanical Engineering and a master student of the Automation and Robotics program at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, collaborating with AURA as an intern. His research interests includes design and manufacture of exoskeletons and eye tracking devices. He is currently working on his masters' dissertation project targeted at the design of an exoskeleton for the upper limb to be used in shoulder rehabilitation therapies. Jorge holds a certificate in plastic manufacturing and a second certificate in 3D designed with Blender.
Erik Hernández is a researcher and the CTO of AURA. His current areas of interests are in healthcare robotics, computer vision, real-time and parallel software development, artificial intelligence, distributed systems. He is also interested in collaborative Multi-Robot Systems, distributed algorithms, robotics security systems and game theory. He received his B.Sc., in computer science from the Autonomous University of Querétaro, Mexico., and his M.Sc. and Ph.D., in Robotics and Automation from the Technical University of Madrid, Spain. Erik obtained one of the "Torres Quevedo" grants, afforded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain.
Pablo is a PhD student in the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain), working with AURA as a researcher. He has obtained the Electronic and Automatic Engineer degree and the M.Sc. degree in Artificial Intelligence, both from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He is interested in machine learning, bayessian networks, neural networks, big data, metaheuristics, software embedded and robotics.
Pablo recently obtained one of the grants "Ayudas para la realización de doctorados industriales en la Comunidad de Madrid", afforded by the Ministry of Education and Research of the Community of Madrid.
Lisandro J. Puglisi has obtained the Engineer degree in Electronics from Universidad Nacional de Tucumán (Argentina), and the M.Sc. and Ph.D in Robotics and Automation from the Technical University of Madrid (Spain). He has more than 10 years working in R&D projects and more than 3 years in the industrial sector in EU projects. He holds three patents, and has contributed with more than 30 articles reported in conferences and in indexed journals listed in the JCR, consolidating his interest in biomechanics, robotics, dynamic systems, control algorithms and Smart Grids.
Irene Pulido is Medical doctor an PhD in Neuroscience by la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Neurologist. Her research interest includes movement analysis and control. She is currently working in AURA as CMO and is responsible of designing and performing studies and clinical trials of AURA's medtech solutions with both patients and healthy subjects.
Sara graduated in Business Administration from the University Carlos III of Madrid. Highly motivated by the process of creation of innovative companies and by the development and exploitation of their full growth potential. Sara enjoyed an internship at the IDC Elevator, accelerator at the University of Herzliya in Tel Aviv, one of the world's most active entrepreneurial ecosystem. Her contribution is focused on the strategic and operational management of AURA, including its daily administration.
