Sergi Abadal received the PhD in Computer Architecture from the Department of Computer Architecture, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in July 2016. Previously, he had obtained the M.Sc. in Information and Communication Technologies (MINT) and the B.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering from the Telecommunication Engineering School (Telecom BCN), UPC, Barcelona, Spain, in 2011 and 2010, respectively.

Sergi has held several visiting researcher positions. From September 2009 to May 2010, he was at the Broadband Wireless Networking Lab, Georgia Tech, under the supervision of Prof. Ian F. Akyildiz. For several months in 2015/2017/2019, he has been visiting the i-acoma group, School of Computer Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (USA), led by Prof. Josep Torrellas. In July and August 2018, he visited Dr. Liaskos and Dr. Ioannidis at FORTH, Crete, Greece.

Currently, he works as a distinguished researcher at the N3Cat group, at the Computer Architecture Department of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He is the recipient of a Starting Grant, called WINC, from the European Research Council (ERC) and also the project coordinator of WIPLASH H2020 FET-OPEN project, while in the past he participated in several other national and EU projects. He is also Area Editor of the Nano Communication Networks (Elsevier) Journal, where he was selected Editor of the Year 2019. From 2020, he acts as one of the ambassadors of the European Innovation Council (EIC) through its program of National Champions. His current research interests are in the areas of chip-scale wireless communications, including channel modeling and protocol design, and the application of these techniques for the creation of novel architectures for next-generation computing systems in the classical and quantum domains. Sergi is member of the IEEE, ACM, and HiPEAC.

Honors and Awards

  • Medal to Spain’s Best Young Researchers, awarded by the Real Academia de Ingeniería to the top 10 engineers under 40 years old in Spain. November 2024.
  • Top 2% scientists in the world in 2023, according to the Stanford’s Ioannidis dataset (citations on a single year). September 2024. [DATA]
  • Top 2% scientists in the world in 2022, according to the Stanford’s Ioannidis dataset (citations on a single year). September 2023. [DATA]
  • ACM NanoCom Outstanding Milestone Award, in recognition for his transversal contributions in the field of wireless chip-scale communications, from electromagnetics to wireless-enabled computer architectures. October 2022. Past recipients of this award are Robert Schober, Ian Akyildiz, Sasitharan Balasubramaniam, Josep M. Jornet, and Ozgur Akan. [PDF] [PRESS]
  • Top 2% scientists in the world in 2021, according to the Stanford’s Ioannidis dataset (citations on a single year). September 2022. [DATA]
  • Top 2% scientists in the world in 2020, according to the Stanford’s Ioannidis dataset (citations on a single year). September 2021. [DATA]
  • National Champion of the European Innovation Council (EIC), designated to ~100 influential researchers and enterpreneurs across Europe. February 2021.
  • Editor of the Year at the Nano Communication Networks Journal, awarded to the best performing editor in a natural year. December 2019.
  • Nano Communication Networks Journal Young Investigator Award, awarded to a Young researcher active in the fields of Nanoscale Communication and Networking. September 2019. [ANNOUNCEMENT]
  • UPC Outstanding Dissertation Award, awarded to best PhD theses at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Academic Year 2016. [ANNOUNCEMENT]
  • INTEL Fellowship, within the INTEL Doctoral Student Honor Programme, awarded to exceptional PhD candidates pursuing leading-edge innovation in fields related to Intel’s business and research interests in the European Union, Switzerland and Russia. Fall 2013 - Spring 2015.
  • Accenture Award, bestowed to the best academic record within the Master in Information and Communication Technologies (MINT) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). September 2012.
  • Vodafone Foundation Fellowship, awarded to outstanding graduate students in the Escola Tècnica i Superior d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicació de Barcelona, to conduct graduate research in the USA, Fall 2009-Spring 2010.
  • ASPLOS ‘16 Travel Grant, awarded to selected students to attend the 21st ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, Atlanta, April 2016.
  • Sentinel of Science 2016-2017, awarded by the website Publons to the Top 1% of researchers contributing to the peer review of the field of Computer Science, 2017. The same was granted in 2016 to the Top 10% reviewers in Engineering.

News Appearances

  • [ENG] HiPEAC Info Magazine. Interview with Dr. Sergi Abadal. October 2022. [LINK]
  • [ENG] NEC Laboratories Europe. NEC Student Research Fellowship Interview with Dr. Sergi Abadal. July 2022. [LINK]
  • [ESP] Atlas Tecnológico. Quantum is worried about communications. May 2022. [LINK]
  • [CAT] L’econòmic. Europe jumps on the quantum bandwagon. April 2022. [LINK]
  • [ENG] The Register. Blight the power: Jamming attack cripples wireless signals using clever reflective technology. June 2020. [LINK]
  • [CAT] Diari de Terrassa. Interview about 5G: present and future. April 2020. [LINK] [LINK2]
  • [ESP] Lavanguardia/El Periódico. Scientists from UPC investigate reconfigurable and programmable metamaterials. July 2017. [LINK] [LINK2]
  • [ENG] IEEE Xplore Spotlight. Graphennas: The Wonder Compound Meets Nano-Scale Wireless Communications. October 2015. [LINK]