Currently, Juan Alejandro Castaño Peña works as an Assistant Professor at Rey Juan Carlos University within the Department of Applied Mathematics, Science and Engineering of Materials, and Electronic Technology. He actively collaborates on various projects with organizations such as the University of Leeds, Politecnico di Milano, and the Italian Institute of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Robotics Cognition and Interactive Technologies from the University of Genoa, Italy, and a Master’s in Electronic Engineering from the Pontifical Javeriana University.

During his academic training, both in his undergraduate and master’s studies, he developed a strong inclination towards research, focusing on control and power electronics. His academic achievements led to an invitation to join the control and power electronics research group at the Pontifical Javeriana University as a research assistant. He developed a power pump for electrical discharges, which required exploring various design alternatives and control strategies. Parallel to his research assistant experience, he completed his master’s in electronic engineering, with a thesis in the field of identification and simulation of nonlinear systems.

Thanks to his performance, he was awarded a scholarship by the RETECA foundation in Lugano, Switzerland. This scholarship involved a research stay at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). This experience provided different work perspectives and helped him identify his strengths and weaknesses both academically and personally, allowing him to improve both aspects. Subsequently, he chose to continue a specific line of research by pursuing a Ph.D. in Applied Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy. During this, he developed control strategies for stabilizing bipedal platforms, achieving the desired results, and developed a reactive trajectory generator that allows stable walking even in the presence of disturbances. This involved deepening multivariable and robust control strategies. The development of these projects also required teamwork, where the involved researchers had to combine very different academic and practical perspectives. Beyond the scientific experience, this allowed him to expand new negotiation and communication strategies, as well as optimal information management in exchanges with fellow researchers.

After completing his Ph.D., he was hired at the Italian Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral researcher, completing his investigations and carrying out new projects, always within the field of applied robotics, extending it to the research field of quadrupeds and locomotion with wheels and legs. Once this experience concluded, he was hired as a visiting professor at Carlos III University of Madrid. As a professor, he has been teaching various courses in both Spanish and English. Direct contact with the academic world has allowed him to develop both humanly and professionally in a very satisfactory direction, which he wishes to continue.

He received his formation at the University of Alcalá, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree and his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Electronics: Advanced Electronic Systems and Intelligent Systems. After obtaining his PhD, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the same University.