Biography:
Francisco López-Valdés obtained a degree on Mechanical Engineer from the University of Valladolid (Spain) in 2002. After graduation, he participated in the development of the Crash Analysis department of the CIDAUT Foundation. In 2006, he joined the European Center for Injury Prevention of the University of Navarra (Spain). In 2007, Francisco was granted a postgraduate fellowship from «La Caixa» Foundation and he moved to the University of Virginia (USA) where he completed a PhD. His doctoral dissertation focused on pediatric impact biomechanics. Francisco returned to Spain in 2012 thanks to a Marie Curie European Union fellowship (Bio-Advance project). At the University of Zaragoza, he coordinated the establishment of the first crash test laboratory with capabilities for Post Mortem Human Surrogate tests in Spain. His current research focuses on injury biomechanics and injury prevention, with a focus on road traffic injuries. In 2017, Francisco joined the faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Engineering School (ICAI) of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas and became Associate Member of IIT. Francisco is a council member of the International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury (IRCOBI) and member of the Board of the Association for the Advancement of the Automotive Medicine. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the journals Injury Prevention, Injury Epidemiology and Journal of Healthcare Engineering.
Areas of interest:
Biomechanics, Injury prevention, biological tissue characterization, injury thresholds, automotive safety