Empathic Entrepreneurial Engineering

Professor David Fernandez Rivas (BS: 2004; MS: 2006 in Nuclear Engineering, Higher Institute of Science and Technology in Havana, Cuba) obtained his PhD at the University of Twente in 2012. He was assistant professor (2014-2019) and associate professor since 2020 in the Mesoscale Chemical Systems Group, and is research affiliate at the Mechanical Engineering Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States of America, since 2017. He has co-authored over 50 reviewed journal papers and is inventor of a patent commercialized by the spin-off BuBclean (2013) of which he is cofounder. His research interest and expertise are in the areas of microfluidics, transdermal drug delivery alternatives, solar-to-fuel cells, process intensification, acoustic cavitation and sonochemistry. In 2019, he obtained the European Research Council Starting Grant for his project BuBble Gun, aimed at penetrating microjets in soft substrates, towards controlled needle-free injections. He is co-chair of the COST Action Greenering: Green Chemical Engineering Network towards upscaling sustainable processes, from the European Cooperation in Science & Technology.
He has received several recognitions, such as the Pieter Langerhuizen Lambertuszoon Fonds prize (2016) awarded by the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW), and elected to the Global Young Academy (2020).