Gonzalo Sánchez Arriaga
Professor Gonzalo Sánchez Arriaga
Aeronautical Engineer at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM, 2004), Bachelor of Science in Physics at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM, 2010), and PhD degree in Aeronautical Engineering (UPM, 2009, Outstanding Award). After defending his PhD thesis on space tethers and plasma physics, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (Paris, 2009-2011), UPM (2011-2015) and UC3M (2015-2020). He performed research visits at the Nice Observatory and the Universities of Kyushu, Freiburg, and Delft. He is Associate Professor and Director of the Bs. In Aerospace Engineering at UC3M, where he leads a research team on tethers applied to aerospace engineering.
He has teaching experience at UPM, where he taught courses in general physics, and the UC3M. He currently teaches and coordinates courses on flight mechanics and space science and environment on the Bs. in Aerospace Engineering, the Ms. in Aeronautical Engineering, and the Ms. in Space Engineering at UC3M. He is co-author of a book on Analytical Mechanics and collaborated in the preparation of a Massive Open Online Course on Aerospace engineering. As its deputy director between 2018 and 2020, he contributed to the launch of the UC3M-SENER Aerospace Chair.
His research interests include the deorbiting of space debris by using space tethers, airborne wind energy (AWE) systems, and plasma physics. He is author of 50 articles in JCR journals, and co-author of more than 50 presentations in international conferences, 2 national and European patents, and 4 registered software. Co-advisor of two ended PhD thesis, he is advisor of 4 ongoing PhD thesis on space tethers, and co-advisor of a PhD thesis on AWE systems. He participated in more than 20 national and European research projects, including several of them as Principal Investigator and the coordination of a FET/OPEN project funded by the European Commission. He was receptor of an FPU grant, a Ramón y Cajal contract, and a Leonardo’s grant by the BBVA Foundation.