Pilar Brufau: “I love setting challenges for students and solving real-world problems”

How are you approaching your new role as Director of EINA?

To be honest, it wasn’t an easy decision. I had already spent seven years involved in management, which gave me the opportunity to get to know the School much better, and I knew what taking on the directorship would involve. We had worked alongside José Antonio Yagüe, the previous director, throughout those years, so we had experienced the good times, the difficult moments and everything in between. But, members of the management team, faculty and EINA staff encouraged me to take the step. In the end, little by little, they convinced me. I also discussed it at home, because having the support of your family is important.

I am taking it on with great enthusiasm. I have experienced the School from the moment I arrived here, just after finishing my degree. I came here to do my PhD and have developed my teaching and research career here ever since.

What challenges lie ahead?

I want to do many things. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do everything, but we have a lot of enthusiasm and motivation. The most important thing for me, above all, is the people who make up EINA. That is my main focus: recognising the work they do and making things easier for them wherever I can.

I want to help create a stronger campus and university life, and bring an international dimension to the classrooms. We also need to improve our facilities and create spaces where we can develop innovative teaching methods. We need new study programmes, and we have to make an effort to update our master’s degrees. When you look at what is being done elsewhere in Europe, there is still room for improvement. We are very traditional, and we need to move towards more current topics. We also need to work on double-degree and joint-degree programmes with foreign universities.

I would also like to promote sporting activities. In the short term, we want to organise a day dedicated to our student athletes, because we have high-level athletes studying here. They have won medals and received recognition at national and world level, and yet we don’t know who they are.

Of course, we also need to strengthen our relationships with everyone who makes up the campus, including all the research institutes and centres.

What ultimately made you decide to pursue research? And, above all, how did you end up specialising in fluid mechanics?

As I said in my inaugural speech, I came here by chance. When I finished my degree, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I had focused heavily on nuclear physics, which had nothing to do with this field.

A friend told me about a research fellowship in fluid mechanics. The project really appealed to me because it was a complete change from everything I had done up to that point, which had been focused on basic research. Here, what they were proposing was completely applied research, dealing with hydraulics. Therefore, I decided to try it. I have always been attracted to challenges.

I was awarded an FPI research fellowship linked to a project developing numerical models of free-surface flow. That became the subject of my PhD thesis. It was the first time we developed a two-dimensional model to simulate the behaviour of water in rivers. You can see the direct transfer of knowledge, you can see how society can benefit from what you are doing, and that is extremely important to me.

Looking at your current work, which research areas would you say are the most relevant or which would you highlight?

Of everything, we have done so far, I think our work on flooding has been the most relevant, particularly its transfer to the Ebro River Basin Authority. Whenever they receive a weather warning indicating that significant rainfall is expected, they run our numerical model and obtain information that helps them prepare their forecasts, issue alerts and protect the population.

When I started this research, I used to think, I hope that one day I will see flood forecasting on the news, just as we see weather forecasts. For me, that would have been the ultimate achievement. Now, in some media outlets, when heavy rainfall is expected, you can already see information about the river flows and when the peak of the flood is expected to arrive.

Of course, we have made a lot of progress in making these models fast enough to run practically in real time. Progress in this area is not moving as quickly now as it did in recent years. Perhaps quantum computers will give us another opportunity to improve computing speed and bring us even closer to real-time forecasting.

“The Ebro basin is highly monitored, and I think there are very few river basins in the world with the tools available to the Ebro River Basin Authority”

What are you currently working on?

On the one hand, I am co-supervising a PhD thesis within a European network focused on water quality models. We have also secured an FPU fellowship for a student, and we are going to work on developing models to predict snow avalanches. It is something I had wanted to start for years but had never found the right moment. I think now is the time to take it on and make progress in this area.

In our group, we tend to work on catastrophic hazards: the lava eruption in La Palma, wildfires or the DANA storm in Valencia, with all the material being carried along with tremendous force. What we are working on now is precisely what is happening at local, national and international level. Moreover, we can contribute something.

Your Computational Hydraulics Group is internationally recognised.

Yes. We started out as a very small group, with two or three people, and it gradually grew into a large research group. When I started, we were already very highly regarded internationally. Wherever I went, conferences, research stays, doors were open to us. We were among the top groups internationally, but nobody knew us here. We always had to fight for recognition because people would tell us: “What you do is not mathematics, it’s not physics, it’s not engineering, and it’s not fluid mechanics.” The early years were very difficult. It took us time to find our place.

Today, at both national and international level, the Ebro basin is monitored in such a way and has such powerful models that I think very few river basins in the world have the tools available to the Ebro River Basin Authority. Internationally, it is held up as an example.

What do you enjoy most about your profession?

I love teaching. I love working with students when they first arrive and know nothing about fluid mechanics, setting them challenges and solving real-world problems with them. Seeing how they learn throughout the course, and how, by the end, you can have a conversation with them because they have acquired technical skills and know how to solve problems, how they contribute ideas and even suggest topics for their final degree projects… For me, that is immensely rewarding.

The research side is similar. Seeing how your work evolves until it reaches the point, where it can be transferred or shared with the public is also very satisfying. After several years of work, when you finally see the end result and realise that you can transfer it to a company or a public institution, you feel that you can give something back to society in return for everything that has been invested in your education, your research projects and your PhD students, everything that has contributed to your career.

What would you say to someone who is considering a career in research?

I would encourage them to go for it. Of course, you have to be highly motivated. I always say that this is not just a job. You have to do it because you are motivated, because you genuinely believe that you can contribute something, that your research can have a practical application or that you can help solve a problem.

You also need to be very consistent and persistent. Don’t give up. It is a long-distance race, and you shouldn’t get discouraged along the way.