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Francesc Font

Detartment of Fluid Mechanics

Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

Dr. Font graduated in Physics in 2008 at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and attained an MSc in Mathematical Engineering from the UPC in 2010. In 2014, he was awarded a PhD in Applied Mathematics from UPC with Cum Laude honours. After his PhD, he held postdoctoral positions in the mathematics departments of the University of Limerick (Ireland) and McMaster University (Canada), in the Department of Physics at UPC, and at the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica (Barcelona, Spain). He has been a visiting researcher at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA) and the Imperial College London (UK). Currently, Dr. Font is a tenure-track Serra-Hunter Assistant Professor in the Fluid Mechanics Department at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

Teaching

Dr. Font is currently involved in teaching and coordinating several courses in thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid dynamics for graduate and undergraduate students at UPC. Previously, he taught calculus and linear algebra curses to first year students in Science and Engineering degrees at McMaster University and the University of Limerick (UL). He has supervised several final year projects and master theses at different universities (UAB, UL, UPC) and has been tutor of several PhD students.

Research

Dr. Font’s primary training is in the development and application of mathematical models in a cross-disciplinary setting. He works at the interface between mathematics, physics and engineering. To date, he has worked on topics such as lithium-ion batteries, nanoscale heat transfer and phase change, capture of contaminants and cell motility and pattern formation. He has made significant contributions on the formulation and analysis of mathematical models describing phase change phenomena. The research developed in this topic has contributed towards our understanding of phase change at the limits of continuum theory. Currently, his research interests have expanded towards using mathematics to tackle environmental challenges. In particular, he is very interested in the formulation of mathematical models describing transport phenomena in porous media for applications such as capture of CO2 from the atmosphere or in the storage of hydrogen in metal hydrides for green energy production technologies.

Numerical Simulation and COMSOL Multiphysics

Throughout his career, Dr. Font has been involved in the mathematical modelling of complex multiscale and multiphysics transport phenomena, which have allowed him to naturally develop skills in the application of numerical methods to solve partial differential equations. He has developed and implemented finite difference numerical schemes to solve heat transfer, phase change and fluid flow problems. He has also experience in the use of the phase field approach to tackle diffuse-interface moving boundary problems. 

Courses taught