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Board category: Aurora Research Council

Professor Robert Sala-Ramos

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Academic discipline: Archeoloogy

Professor of Prehistory at the URV since 2000
Director of the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution from 2015 until 2023
PhD in History, URV 1997 

Professor Robert Sala-Ramos was responsible for the Erasmus Mundus Master and Doctorate on Quaternary and Prehistory since 2004 until 2018. He is PI of the research project at the Ain Beni Mathar – Guefait (Eastern Morocco) where he lead archaeological excavations within international cooperation programs with the Université Mohammed Premier of Oujda (Eastern Morocco), as well as PI of the Research Project at Orce (Andalusia, Spain) from 2009 through 2015. 

His research is devoted to the evolution of the behaviour and ways of life of the first settlers of Europe and Maghreb, especially regarding the technical system and the settlement in new territories. 

Professor Santiago Garcia Vallve

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Academic Discipline: Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, Chemoinformatics

Dr. Santi Garcia-Vallvé is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). He is a member of the Chemoinformatics and Nutrition Research Group. His research focuses on cheminformatics and computational drug design. He has contributed to the development of several virtual screening procedures aimed at discovering new antidiabetic compounds (such as partial agonists of PPARγ and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors), anti-inflammatory agents targeting IKK2, protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) inhibitors, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitors. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, his research has focused on the development of novel SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M-pro) inhibitors and the analysis of SARS-CoV-2 mutations. He is the co-author of more than 80 scientific articles and has been included in the Stanford list (2020–2024) of the world’s top 2% most influential researchers.

Associate Professor Martin Elbel

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Academic discipline: History

Martin Elbel is an Associate Professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc. His primary research area is early modern European culture. He has been engaged in the study of the history of the Franciscan Order, investigating its communication strategies and societal interactions. Additionally, his academic interests encompass rituals, magic, and witchcraft, as well as visual culture. He has held visiting fellowships at the Warburg Institute in London, IASH in Edinburgh, and NIAS in Wassenaar, and a visiting professorship at the University of Osaka. Presently, he is working on a project titled Under Ominous Skies: Experiencing Storms in Early Modern Bohemian Lands, which seeks to explore cultural responses to natural hazards in pre-modern society.