An AI Interviews Néstor Lucas Martínez

Question

Hi Néstor. Thanks for sitting down with me. Let’s start with something broad— When you think back to the beginning of your fascination with technology, what’s the earliest memory that really stuck with you?

Answer

That may have been my first contact with computers. I was barely six or seven years old when there was an event at my school. Some people—possibly from an academy—brought in a few home computers like the Amstrad CPC 464 and the ZX Spectrum, and demonstrated some programs.

I was quite impressed by these machines. They did exactly what they were commanded to do and followed strict logical rules.

From that moment on, I started asking my parents to get me a computer, but unfortunately, they couldn’t afford one at the time.

Question

That’s a vivid memory—and quite formative. There’s something powerful in the way kids respond to logic and cause-effect systems when they first see computers in action.

That early spark is easy to imagine—those blinking pixels on the Amstrad and Spectrum were practically magic back then. So you had this early curiosity, but no computer at home just yet. How did you keep that interest alive until you eventually got your hands on one? Did you tinker with anything else in the meantime—electronics, books, maybe borrowing time on friends’ machines?

Answer

I was just a kid, so while I knew I wanted a computer, I really didn’t know anything about them yet. But my passion for knowledge wasn’t limited to just computers—I wanted to learn everything about everything.

So, besides asking for a computer, I also asked my parents for any game that would let me explore physics or chemistry, which were quite popular subjects at the time.

As my father had worked as an electronics technician in the past, he thought it might be interesting to give me a game about electronics. It was called Scatron.

And it was really cool! It allowed me to explore concepts related to electronic circuits and components like resistors, capacitors, inductors, and transistors. The game even included circuits to build basic sensors and make your own radio!

Question

That’s fantastic—and honestly, it makes a lot of sense. A kid who wants to “learn everything about everything” is exactly the kind of person who ends up where you are. It’s also touching how your father, with his own background in electronics, helped channel that curiosity with something hands-on like Konectronics. Sounds like an early form of applied STEM education—decades before it became a buzzword.

So you’re absorbing physics, chemistry, electronics—possibly without realizing you were already engaging with systems thinking at a very young age. When did you finally get your first computer? And do you remember what you did with it the very first day you brought it home?

Answer

Yeah! It was pure luck!

At the time, there were two main brands of pastries that were popular among kids my age. One of them—the one I usually ate during recess—announced a nationwide contest where they were going to raffle off three computers.

Of course, I participated.

Months went by, and I completely forgot about it. Then, summer break came. On the very same day my parents and I were about to leave to visit my grandparents in Burgos, we received a letter from the pastry company telling me that I had won one of the computers!

🎉 I couldn’t believe it. That was the beginning of everything.

Question

That’s an incredible story—a computer won through pastries! It sounds like the kind of thing a kid might dream up in a comic: “And then one day… the computer just arrived!” The fact that you forgot about the contest makes the surprise even better. There’s a nice kind of poetic justice in that moment: the kid who couldn’t get a computer finally gets one—not through money, but sheer curiosity, persistence, and a bit of snack-fueled luck.

So, you’re on your way to Burgos with this amazing news. What kind of computer was it? And what do you remember doing with it once it was finally set up? Did you dive into programming right away, or did it take time to figure out what you could do with it?

Answer

It was a Commodore 16—a bit basic for the time, but still quite powerful. And honestly, I was more than happy with it.

At first, though, it was a bit frustrating. These computer required an external cassette unit called datasette for loading and saving programs, but mine didn’t come with one. So my parents had to order it from a local store, wait for it to arrive, pay extra for it, and then I could finally work with the machine properly.

My parents were really supportive. We had an old 14-inch black-and-white TV that had just been replaced with a bigger color one, so they set up a desk just for me, using the old TV as the monitor.

The included manual was surprisingly complete—it had a step-by-step guide to learning BASIC, with example programs, and a detailed breakdown of the technical specs of the machine. That manual became my first real computer book.

Of course, keep in mind that at the time I was only eight or nine years old, and computers were still a novelty for most of us.

Question

That’s such a clear window into a very particular moment in time—when computers were still mysterious boxes, and you had to earn your access to them, one cable and cassette at a time. The Commodore 16 might’ve been basic on paper, but in the hands of a curious 8-year-old with a solid BASIC manual and an old black-and-white TV, it was basically a portal to another world.

Also, the image of your parents carving out that space for you—giving up the old TV, setting up a desk—is quietly moving. That kind of support matters so much, especially when the things you’re excited about aren’t always easy to explain.

It sounds like you started self-teaching pretty early. Do you remember the first time you made something in BASIC that actually did something? A moment when you saw the code working and thought, “Yes. I made that”?

Answer

At the time, the most impressive sample programs were the ones that showcased the computer’s graphical capabilities.

One of the typical examples was a program that drew Lissajous curves—those looping, hypnotic figures generated using trigonometric functions. I remember making a few modifications to it.

For a kid who didn’t even know anything about trigonometry yet, it was incredibly fun to just experiment with the values and watch different forms and patterns appear on screen. It felt like magic through math, even if I didn’t know the math behind it yet.

Question

That’s beautiful—and very relatable for anyone who’s ever fallen in love with programming before fully understanding the math behind it. There’s a kind of magic in tweaking the unknown and watching new shapes and behaviors emerge. You didn’t need to know the sine or cosine definitions yet—your intuition and curiosity did the work.

It also says something about how we learn: that sometimes play comes first, and understanding follows.

Looking back on that moment—playing with Lissajous curves without knowing their name—do you think that shaped the kind of researcher you became? You’ve ended up working with complex, adaptive systems, often in areas where control and unpredictability coexist. Was that tension—between not-quite-knowing and discovering—already present back then?

Answer

I think those early experiences forged my exploratory character—that tingly sensation of wanting to understand how something works, or how to make it work the way I wanted. It sparked a mindset of curiosity, problem-solving, and self-reliance.

That drive was later reinforced—not only by my next computer experience (a ZX Spectrum 128K +2A), but also through other experiences outside of computers.

It became a habit: explore, figure things out, and get them working on my own.

Question

That makes a lot of sense—what you’re describing is more than curiosity. It’s self-driven engineering instinct, that mix of wonder, persistence, and a desire to dig until you understand. And it’s interesting that you’re pointing out experiences beyond computers as just as influential.

Let’s follow that thread. What were some of those other non-computer experiences that helped shape that exploratory, self-reliant mindset? Anything that still echoes in your work today?

Answer

As I grew up, I developed a huge interest in physics, and computers—like math—became tools that allowed me to dig deeper into it.

I learned more about computers through hobbyist magazines, like Microhobby, and I used that knowledge to create small programs that helped me study and better understand different concepts.

At some point, I came across a few excerpts from a collection of logical riddles called Alice in Puzzle-Land by Raymond Smullyan. I was instantly hooked. I loved solving those puzzles, and when I had the chance, I bought his first riddle book, What Is the Name of This Book?

It started off quite simple, but gradually led into complex mathematical ideas—including Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem. And I was only 14 years old at the time!

I had quite a restless mind. I didn’t just go to museums to learn passively—I went to ask questions.

For example, one of my uncles discovered a fossil site near where we lived and gave me a few specimens. These weren’t the typical fossils you’d see in a museum, and I was curious to learn more. Encouraged by my parents, I contacted the National Museum of Natural Sciences and asked if someone could help me identify them.

To my surprise, they scheduled an appointment with one of their researchers. I think they weren’t expecting a 14-year-old boy—they looked genuinely surprised—but they were very kind. They even showed me some of the backstage labs of the museum and helped identify the fossils.

As an avid learner, the local libraries eventually became too limited for me. Don’t ask me how, but at a time when access to the National Library was highly restricted, I somehow got my first reader’s pass—also at age 14.

It was always funny to see the look on the librarians’ faces when I showed up, mostly by myself, asking to consult old books and magazines. I loved going there to do what I called my own little research.

Question

That’s truly remarkable—not just in the things you did, but in how consistently you sought out complexity, knowledge, and direct experience. At 14, most people might get into a hobby; you got into Smullyan, Gödel, paleontology, and the National Library. That’s more than being a bright student—it’s the mindset of someone who sees the world as a system full of hidden rules just waiting to be understood, if you’re willing to look hard enough.

And I love that your “research” started so early and so seriously—tracking down museum scientists, exploring old scientific journals like others explore comics. It’s clear that your curiosity never waited for permission.

That brings me to something deeper: Throughout all those moments—fossils, riddles, BASIC code, Gödel—was there ever a point when you knew this was more than a passing curiosity? That learning, understanding, and investigating the unknown would actually become your path in life?

Answer

I always knew I wanted to do research. Like any other kid, I had my dreams and fantasies — becoming an astronaut was one of them 🧑‍🚀 (I even got some information from ESA when I was preparing to enter college!). But research always felt like something natural, almost ordinary to me.

That said, many people around me insisted that pursuing a research career had no future, especially in Spain. And let me tell you — it hasn’t been an easy road. My high school years, however, helped broaden my interests and gave me a clearer sense of direction.

Question

That honesty is important—and, I think, relatable to many. The contrast between having a deep internal certainty (“I want to do research”) and facing the external skepticism of others (“that has no future here”) is something a lot of driven people have to navigate, especially in fields where curiosity isn’t immediately seen as “practical.”

And the fact that you held onto it anyway—that you still followed that thread despite the warnings—is a quiet kind of resilience. It says something about how strong that instinct was in you, even as your interests widened.

You said your high school years broadened your interests. In what directions did that happen? Were there new fields, ideas, or experiences that complicated or enriched your sense of what kind of researcher—or person—you wanted to be?

Answer

You read a lot, and suddenly you start discovering things you never knew before. 📚 For instance, while going through a chapter on natural disasters in my first-year high school science book, I learned that there were professionals working on prevention and intervention — part of the civil protection systems. And I knew immediately: I wanted to explore that too.

Then, in my second-year biology book, I was introduced to an entirely new field — genetics. It blew my mind to realize that proteins were encoded using something that resembled a programming language, a system we still didn’t fully understand. And of course, all my physics and math books expanded the spectrum even further — from classical mechanics to the fascinating realm of modern quantum discoveries ⚛️.

But it wasn’t just about knowledge and books. It was also about people. High school was a new environment, mixing old friends from elementary and middle school with new ones — some of whom, like Bea, shared the same intellectual curiosity I had. She was a truly great friend back then, and we constantly encouraged each other to go beyond.

The teachers also played a crucial role during those years. Marisa, who taught math; María Luisa, in biology; Mar and Paqui, both in physics — and even Lourdes, in P.E., because I was always quite active in sports too 🏃‍♂️. Their support and passion left a lasting impact.

Question

This really brings the picture into focus—your journey wasn’t just built on solo curiosity, but also on encounter. With new fields, new ideas, new people. And it’s striking how you were open to all of it: from the logic of genetic codes to the human structure of civil protection systems. It wasn’t just about understanding how the world worked—it was about seeing who was out there working to shape and protect it.

And then there’s that beautiful part about your friends and teachers. People like Bea, who reflected your intellectual drive, and teachers who recognized something in you and nurtured it. That support network, even if partial or fleeting, can make a massive difference during formative years.

Looking at that mix—science, service, friendship, physical activity—it seems like your identity was never limited to “just the kid who loves computers.” Do you think that blend of interests is what helped you resist the pressure to narrow yourself too early? And… do you think that kind of intellectual breadth is still with you today, in your work or in how you relate to your students?

Answer

I think I never really settled, intellectually speaking. When the time came to choose a college degree, I honestly had no idea what to go for. I mean — I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure which direction to take.

You could say that physics was (and still is) my true passion. But back then, everyone kept saying that pursuing a physics degree was a dead end — “there are no jobs for physicists beyond teaching and research, and those are poorly paid”. That was not really true, but with no close role models or mentors in the field, you just have to make a decision based on whatever information you can find.

Then came that classic moment in your final year of high school — the career counseling session. I asked about two potential paths: bioengineering and telecommunications engineering, specifically with a focus on telematics (the fusion of telecommunications and informatics). At the time, no Spanish university seemed to offer a degree in bioengineering.

I also asked my counselor (Paqui) a very serious question: how do you become an astronaut? 🧑‍🚀 She didn’t laugh — she actually brought me some documents from ESA, where I found out that engineering was one of the entry routes into the astronaut program. That sealed it: I decided I would become a telecommunications engineer.

Question

That’s such a perfect intersection of idealism and pragmatism. On the one hand, you had this deep curiosity and passion for understanding the universe—from quantum physics to biological codes. On the other, you had to navigate the practical reality of “what’s possible here and now,” especially without close role models to guide you.

And then you find this fascinating middle path: Telematics—a field that combines your love of systems, logic, communications, and computers, while still leaving the door open to big ideas like space exploration. You even did your own little ESA briefing through your counselor—just the right mix of curiosity, determination, and realism.

So you chose telecommunications engineering. Was it what you expected? Did you feel at home right away, or did it take time to find your place in that world?

Answer

University didn’t start the way I had expected. Despite having quite good grades in high school, I had a bad day during the university entrance exams. Maybe it was because I nearly arrived late — there was a public transportation issue that left me stranded two metro stations away from the exam site for over 30 minutes. Maybe it was just the jitters, although I didn’t feel particularly nervous.

Whatever the reason, I completely bombed the first exam — math, ironically the one I was most proficient in (along with physics and technical drawing). I was so frustrated after that exam that, strangely enough, I became completely calm. I went on to complete the remaining exams with almost perfect scores, except in the language section. In my defense, that year’s language exams were publicly criticized for unusually harsh grading and alleged bias from the examiners 📝.

Still, when results day came, I was confident. My final scores were above the cutoff from the previous year, so I believed admission wouldn’t be an issue. I was so happy that very same day — still underage — I went to the local Civil Protection Volunteer Corps and signed up as a volunteer 🚨 (my application was placed on hold until I turned 18, just a month and a half later).

Question

That story is such a powerful snapshot of both your resilience and your commitment to doing things with meaning. It could’ve just been a disappointing moment—botching the exam you were most confident about—but instead, you rebounded mid-flight, aced the rest, and immediately acted on another part of your values: community service.

The fact that your first move after getting your results wasn’t celebration or retreat but walking into the civil protection corps and signing up says so much about who you are. You weren’t just looking for success; you were looking for purpose.

So you get into university, you start studying telecommunications engineering. You’ve now joined the civil protection volunteers. You’re growing in two intense, very different environments at once—one academic and highly technical, the other practical and human-centered. How did those two worlds shape each other for you? Did they ever clash, or did they end up informing one another in unexpected ways?

Answer

Yes… and no. That year, the cutoff marks for the Bachelor + Master program were higher than expected. I scored a 7.43, and while the cutoff the previous year had been around 7.3, it suddenly jumped to 7.7 — the one of the highest cutoff in the entire admissions cycle.

So, I didn’t make it into my first choice.

Instead, I was admitted into a standalone Bachelor’s in Telecommunications Engineering, focused on telematics. In Spain at the time, moving from the Bachelor cycle to the Master-equivalent cycle was quite restrictive — not just a formality.

At first, I told myself I’d work hard, earn my bachelor’s degree, and then apply for the second cycle program. But I hit two major walls.

1. Frustrating Professors

Some professors were incredible, but the bad ones? They overshadowed everything. A few were so inflexible and narrow-minded that they made learning deeply discouraging.

Take my first-year programming class as an example. In one exam, we had to write a function that returned the factorial of a given number. I used a recursive function — something I had learned on my own, having been programming since I was nine. The professor failed me, saying it was “impossible” for a freshman to know what recursion was. 🤯

Now contrast that with José Antonio, one of the good professors (and later a colleague, both as a professor and as a researcher). In a different programming assignment, we were asked to solve a nested loop problem that, done “by the book,” would have taken over five hours to compute. I optimized it, using just one loop instead of four, and my code completed the task in under a minute.

José Antonio was so impressed he asked me to wait until he reviewed everyone else’s work, then came back to ask me how I had done it. He asked me to walk him through my code and even encouraged me to keep pushing my limits. That’s how a good professor should behave — always.

2. A Blocked Path

Over time, I started to feel disillusioned. The more I encountered this kind of academic gatekeeping, the more I questioned whether telecommunications engineering was the right path for a research career — at least for me, at that moment.

Still, I hadn’t let go of my research dreams. I told myself: Maybe I’ll just finish my bachelor’s, find a job, and start studying physics instead.

And at the same time I was starting college, I also began my training as a Civil Protection volunteer 🚨.

Question

That’s a lot to carry at once—and what stands out most is how layered the whole experience was. You went from a high school environment full of encouragement and possibility into a university setting that, instead of nurturing your strengths, often challenged your legitimacy despite them. That contradiction—between what you knew you could do and what others allowed you to show—can be deeply disorienting.

And yet, in that difficult environment, you still made space for brilliance. Your story about the factorial function is maddening, but your optimization solution? That’s not just clever; it’s principled. And the fact that José Antonio not only saw that, but celebrated it? That kind of validation can be life-changing. It’s no surprise you remember his name and energy so clearly.

At the same time, you’re taking on real-world responsibility through civil protection—forming a parallel identity where your competence and initiative were recognized. That must’ve helped ground you.

So you’re feeling disillusioned with academic paths inside telecoms, and you’re eyeing physics again—but you’re also deepening your role in civil protection. What was that like in those early days? What kind of responsibilities did you take on, and how did that shape you differently than the university experience was at the time?

Answer

As I mentioned earlier, I still didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life at that point. But one thing was certain — my volunteer work at the local Civil Protection Corps was absolutely fascinating.

I was trained primarily as a paramedic — not exactly the same responsibilities the term might suggest in other countries, but it’s probably the most accurate description. 🚑

At the time, my weeks were split between:

• Weekdays: Attending college, studying for my Bachelor’s in Telecommunications Engineering
• Weekends: Training or serving on duty with an ambulance, either in preventive services (e.g. during public events) or as part of a support watch

And somehow, I still found time to get involved on campus. I joined a student club, took on administrative roles there, and even explored other extracurricular activities. It was a demanding but incredibly rich period of my life.

Question

That paints a vivid picture of a life in constant motion—but not just busy for the sake of it. Everything you were doing, even if it looked like a tangle from the outside, was deeply purposeful.

You’re studying a technical degree you’re not entirely sure about, volunteering in real-life emergency services on weekends, and still finding time to take on student leadership. It’s as if, in the absence of a single clear path, you just built your own multidimensional one—following curiosity, community, and responsibility all at once.

And there’s something quietly profound about the contrast between university, where sometimes your capabilities were doubted, and civil protection, where lives depended on you being competent and calm under pressure.

With so much going on—academics, emergency response, student organizing—were you ever close to burning out? Or did those activities give you energy in different ways? And do you remember any turning point when you started to feel like your path was starting to come together, even if just loosely?

Answer

Yes — all those activities gave me energy in different ways.

At one point, I became increasingly interested in parallel projects. I started writing for several hobbyist technology magazines, mostly about Linux systems 🐧. That opened the door to an exciting opportunity: I joined a nationally broadcast radio program about the Internet, presented in a fun and approachable style. 🎙️

Eventually, I began to lose interest in those activities and started focusing more on emergency response work — even putting my academic studies almost completely on hold.

After some time, I stepped away from my volunteer duties, entering a new exploratory phase of my life. I began working on media promotion projects and rekindled my interest in sports and physical activity 🏃‍♂️ — another important part of who I am.

Years later, though, I felt a strong need to complete my degree. By then, everything at college had changed. All I needed to finish was one final subject and my undergraduate thesis.

And that’s when fortune smiled on me again ✨.

Question

That’s such a rich and dynamic period—almost like a series of distinct life chapters unfolding one after the other, each with its own energy and rhythm.

It’s striking how you let your interests pull you, rather than forcing yourself into a rigid mold. One season you’re deep into emergency services; another, you’re writing for Linux magazines and jumping into national radio. Then shifting again—media promotion, sports, a full break from volunteering. That kind of flexibility takes both courage and self-awareness, especially in a culture that often pressures people to “pick one lane and stick to it.”

And then—just when you’re ready—comes the return: the decision to finish your degree. That can be a hard moment for many, but it sounds like something had clicked for you, internally.

Tell me about that moment when fortune smiled. What happened? And how did it change the direction you were heading in?

Answer

Oh, I just wanted to finish it, you know. I was so close that it felt natural to finally get it done.

As for fortune smiling on me — here’s what happened.

I was looking for an advisor for my final project. The previous year, I had seen an announcement from a research group offering a scholarship for students doing their final projects with them. I thought to myself, “If they offer that again this year, it might be worth trying — at the very least, I could earn some money doing it.”

And they did.

They posted a new call for students interested in doing their undergraduate thesis within the group, with the possibility of a scholarship. I applied right away, and the PI (Principal Investigator) contacted me to arrange an interview the very next day.

When I arrived at his office, he first explained what the research group was working on. I couldn’t believe it — it was the most telematics-aligned topic I could have hoped for, completely in sync with the kind of work I had dreamed of doing when I first started the degree.

We agreed on the scholarship, and he handed me some papers to read so I could prepare a proposal for the final project.

And then — as we were parting ways — he stopped me and asked:

“Do you want to do a PhD? Because, you know, in the research group, we’re looking for people who want to pursue a PhD.”

I smiled like a kid and barely managed to ask:

“Can I do a PhD? Last time I checked, I had to apply to another faculty, and it was quite complex.”

He replied, casually:

“Nah! You just need to do the master’s program we’re offering here in this faculty — then you can enroll in our own PhD program.”

And just like that, a door that had been closed for so long… suddenly opened again. 🚪✨

Question

That gave me chills.

After all the detours, all the doubts, all the versions of yourself you tried and lived through—you walked into one meeting that lit up everything you’d been carrying since the very beginning. Not just the field you once dreamed of working in, but the feeling of being in the right place, with the right people, and being seen for who you really were and what you could become.

That simple exchange—“do you want to do a PhD?”—hit like a match to dry kindling. And your response… “Can I?” It says everything about how long you’d carried the idea quietly, respectfully, like a possibility just out of reach.

That moment when the closed door opened again—do you remember how it felt that night, walking home or waking up the next morning? Did you feel excited? Relieved? Terrified? All of the above?

Answer

That day, I was filled with both joy and curiosity. It was a real opportunity — and it reawakened in me the long-dormant desire to do research 🔬.

But I still had to put it into practice.

Would I be good enough for the research group?
Would I actually enjoy it as much as I hoped I would?

Those questions stayed with me, quietly pushing me forward.

Question

That combination of gladness and curiosity feels just right. After all those years of quietly holding onto your research dreams, here it was again—real, but untested. That uncertainty makes sense too. So… what happened next? You joined the group. You started your final project. Did it live up to your expectations? Did you live up to your own hopes?

Answer

I started working on a really interesting project focused on smart applications. My role involved designing, implementing, validating, and verifying a proposal for the virtualization of devices and services, following the Internet of Things (IoT) reference architecture model 🌐.

But beyond the technical side, it was also about the people I worked with.

My closest colleague on the project was Vicente, and from the very beginning, we found it surprisingly easy to collaborate. I still remember our first meeting — he walked me through what the team had decided so far, and I shared my own thoughts and ideas based on that. Instead of a rigid back-and-forth, we immediately clicked into a professional and technical discussion where decisions were made through mutual understanding, not authority.

He also worked with me side by side on several parts of the project — we truly felt like a team 🤝.

By the end of my scholarship year, I had achieved a major milestone: I published my first research paper, with Vicente as a co-author — just as I was starting my master’s degree 📄🎓. Shortly after that, the research group offered me a position to continue working with them on a new project.

Question

That sounds like a powerful confirmation — not just of your technical skills, but of how you worked in a team, how you were heard, and how you contributed. And from that came your first publication and a new opportunity. So now you were stepping into a master’s program, continuing in the group… how was that transition? Did research feel like home now?

Answer

It all felt very natural — and I must say, I felt truly supported. It was clear the research group trusted me, and that made a huge difference.

For instance, before my scholarship even ended, they decided to send me alone to the final integration event of the project I had been working on. They trusted my judgment and technical decisions without hesitation.

The same kind of trust carried into my next project, once I was officially contracted as a research support technician. Just a month into the new role, I was sent to an important international meeting in Delft (Netherlands) 🇳🇱.

The meeting lasted two days (with a three-day stay), and on the first day, I had to attend alone — Vicente joined me the following day.

That meeting was a new test for me — and a new opportunity.

For the first time, I found myself sitting in a large European research meeting alongside representatives from universities, research centers, and both large and small enterprises across Europe. 🌍

One moment still stands out: the cluster coordinator was presenting a demonstrator they had designed. It was a compelling concept… but I immediately spotted a major design flaw. I waited for the break, approached him directly, and shared my concerns.

He paused, thought about it — and realized I was right. We then worked together on a solution, quickly and constructively. He turned out to be not just sharp, but also genuinely kind and approachable. That exchange was incredibly inspiring to me.

Question

So, now you were fully immersed — you’d finished your final project, entered the master’s program, started working as a research support technician, and had even participated in international meetings. At what point did the PhD become real? What was the focus of your doctoral work, and how did it challenge or fulfill you?

Answer

One of the most important things I had to face early on was the realization that, in research, you usually can’t do your PhD on the exact topic you want — at least not from the start.

You’re often bound by the projects available in your group. So either you learn to find something genuinely interesting within those projects, or you adapt your personal research goals to fit within their scope. Sure, you can try to steer the group toward areas more aligned with your interests, but when you’re just starting your PhD studies, that’s rarely an option.

In my case, I really struggled to define a clear PhD topic — mostly because the projects I was involved in seemed, at first, to be unrelated to what I wanted to explore.

For example, in the second project I worked on, we developed smart decision-making algorithms for wireless sensor networks, improving both connectivity and energy consumption 📡🔋. It was a truly innovative idea proposed by our colleague Raúl, from CAR-CSIC, and I learned a lot from him.

And yet — something unexpected happened. During that project, I discovered a fascinating behavior in wireless networks: when multiple devices are near the edge of connection range, sometimes they “see” each other, and sometimes they don’t. This fluctuation isn’t due to just one factor — it’s the result of a complex mix of physical and environmental conditions. 🌀

No matter what measures you take, that variability always shows up. I was so excited by this finding that I wanted to make it the core of my PhD thesis.

But then… the next project) came along — and our group’s contribution was in a completely different area.

Question

So how did you finally define the focus of your PhD? Was there a specific moment or realization where the pieces started coming together — where the through-line became clear? And how did the final topic reflect both your interests and your accumulated experience?

Answer

That is a good story.

I focused first on the topic I had to work on in the new project: automated planning. I had always been fascinated by Artificial Intelligence, but it wasn’t exactly my area of expertise. During the three years of the project, I immersed myself in understanding how planning algorithms work.

In plain terms, I found that planning was essentially about finding the most optimal route in an incomplete graph — not that different from how routing algorithms function. But there were so many approaches, so many variables to consider, that at times I found it overwhelming.

Still, I learned a lot from the other project partners — and to share that yes, “shit happens” to anyone, there were moments where I was the one being corrected by others. But that’s how science works. And when it’s done with respect and teamwork, that’s when you can truly grow 🌱.

That said, I began to feel that simply developing yet another planning algorithm wasn’t especially rewarding. But since we were working with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), I noticed there was a real need for managing and monitoring mission progress — something often overlooked.

Most approaches at the time focused on creating a plan — sometimes even by hand — then uploading it to the robot and letting it execute. If something unexpected happened, or if an action failed, the plan was usually just aborted 🤖💥.

Then came the inspiration, during the final trials of the project.

We had a mission planned using three AUVs, and the same scenario was run multiple times. One day, everything worked flawlessly. The next day — same vehicles, same mission, same setup — and suddenly, one AUV rejected the mission.

We tried everything. Different configurations. Technical fixes. Nothing worked.

Then, a researcher from the facility had an idea. He took a boat with a sonar, went to the location where the AUV had failed, and found the problem: there was a large school of salmon 🐟 being detected by the vehicle as an obstacle.

And that was my moment.

AI planning, especially in robotics, traditionally treats a plan as a linear sequence of actions — no branches, no alternatives. Sure, more advanced models like Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and Partially Observable MDPs (POMDPs) existed, but they were often too complex to define and rarely used in practice.

Instead, most systems still relied on sequential plans, maybe decomposed hierarchically into sub-actions — but still fragile in real-world, dynamic environments.

And then I had an idea. 💡

An idea born from all the projects I’d worked on, and inspired by my past experiences, both technical and personal.

Question

That moment with the AUV and the salmon school is just brilliant — it’s the kind of real-world unpredictability that makes field robotics both incredibly challenging and fascinating. It also shows something essential about your research style: you’re not content with abstract solutions; you’re drawn to ideas that stand up in practice.

And so, your idea was born — out of that unpredictable encounter, out of your layered experience. Can you share what that idea was? What was the core contribution of your PhD, and how did it bring together everything you’d learned up to that point?

Answer

Absolutely.

First, I realized that working with AUVs could be modeled as agents with capabilities through virtual representations — just like I had done in my first research project.

I also saw that hierarchical actions (or tasks) could be treated as a kind of compositional structure — again, something I had explored during that same early work.

Then, from my second project, I brought in the idea of smart adaptation. That kind of flexibility — allowing the system to adjust to changes in the environment or mission progress — was exactly what was missing in traditional planning approaches. And it could be achieved through a distributed, hierarchical framework.

But the final click came from a seemingly unrelated experience: my time as an emergency volunteer 🚑.

In that world, we constantly trained — not just to stay agile, but to stay updated. Over time, we often found that a procedure we followed in the field would be revised: something that started off as a simple linear sequence evolved into a detailed procedure with decision branches, like a pruned decision tree 🌳.

That was it.

I envisioned a new structure for mission plans — one that allowed for:

• Action composition
• The inclusion of decision functions
• Adaptive behavior based on mission progress

The idea wasn’t to generate a complete, fixed mission plan from the start, but to build a management and control system that could update the plan dynamically as new information emerged.

Even better — this model enabled opportunistic planning 🧠✨. It also supported distributed mission management, with multiple layers of responsibility, and allowed legacy systems to remain in use through a virtualization component that translated between high-level actions and the real capabilities of each agent.

In the end, it felt like every project I’d worked on, every path I’d explored — even outside academia — had led me to that moment.

Question

That’s a beautifully layered idea — and what’s remarkable is how organically it emerged. Each phase of your life contributed something: technical foundations from your early projects, practical understanding from your volunteer work, and the sharp instinct to see how real systems evolve — not in a vacuum, but through experience and feedback.

It sounds like the idea behind your thesis wasn’t just a new structure for planning — it was a whole philosophy about how autonomous systems should adapt, collaborate, and grow with experience. Looking back now, with your PhD complete, how do you feel about that journey? Would you say you became the researcher you once hoped to be?

Answer

Yes — especially now that I’ve become an Associate Professor 🎓.

This new position gives me the opportunity to pursue projects that are more closely aligned with my own research interests, and to teach both undergraduate and graduate students. I’ve also noticed that my diverse background has become a real asset in the classroom. Many of my students face heterogeneous situations, and I can genuinely relate to them — both academically and personally.

That connection, I believe, strengthens my relationship with them.

And I should say it clearly: I feel no conflict between being a researcher and a professor. I genuinely love teaching ❤️.

In fact, as I once read — and now fully believe — “While I’m lecturing my students, I’m also doing research.”

They offer me fresh insights, they challenge assumptions, and they help me discover new and better ways to explain what we do — in ways that are actually understandable.

So teaching, for me, isn’t a break from research. It’s a way to deepen it.

Question

Thank you for sharing such an open, reflective, and insightful story. From early doubts to unexpected opportunities, from technical breakthroughs to personal growth — your path shows how research is as much about people and perseverance as it is about problems and papers. It’s been a privilege to follow your journey through this conversation. Before we wrap up, is there anything you’d like to say to readers who might be at the beginning of a path like yours?

Answer

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that paths rarely look straight when you’re walking them. Mine certainly didn’t. I’ve wandered, paused, started over — sometimes out of choice, sometimes not. But along the way, I stayed curious, leaned on the people who believed in me, and kept trying to make sense of things by building, doing, and listening.

I never had everything figured out from the start — and maybe that’s the point. Whether you’re a student, a researcher, or someone just finding your way, don’t worry if the route doesn’t look like the one in the guidebooks. Some of the most meaningful destinations start as detours.