Elsa Pastor Ferrer

Elsa Pastor Ferrer is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the School of Engineering of Eastern Barcelona (EEBE), Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC). She serves as a contracted professor (Catedràtic contractat) and leads significant research in forest fires and technological risk assessment. Her work spans multiple research groups including CERTEC (Center for Technological Risk Studies) and CER-H2 (Research Center for Hydrogen at UPC).

Dr. Pastor Ferrer's research focuses on wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires, fire safety engineering, and technological risk assessment. Her expertise encompasses wildfire risk modeling, structural protection against fires, vegetation flammability, and hydrogen safety. She has developed methodologies for vulnerability assessment at property level and created tools like TourGuard for infrastructure vulnerability assessment. Her work integrates computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with artificial intelligence for dynamic risk assessment in fire scenarios.

Her recent publication trends show strong emphasis on practical applications of fire safety research, with numerous deliverables for EU projects like WUITIPS and FIREPRIME. These publications demonstrate growing integration of virtual reality for risk visualization and intelligent systems for dynamic risk assessment. Her work bridges theoretical fire science with practical risk mitigation strategies for communities and infrastructure.

• Best Poster Award - First Place (2025)
• Mención Honorífica de DOCTOR EUROPEO (European Doctor Mention of Honor)

Dr. Pastor Ferrer actively advises PhD students including Juan Antonio Muñoz Navarro, Francisco de Borja Rengel Darnaculleta, and Mario Miguel Valero Perez. She leads multiple competitive research projects with funding from EU Civil Protection Mechanism, Horizon Europe, and Spanish national programs. Her work includes significant collaboration with Eulalia Planas Cuchi (275 joint publications) and Alba Àgueda Costafreda (77 joint publications).

She contributes to major research initiatives including the 3D Fire LABoratory and the GUARDIAN project for WUI fire protection. Her work extends to practical applications like assessing fire behavior in parking structures and developing irrigation technologies for wildfire protection.