Irene Parada

Irene Parada is an Assistant Professor and Serra Húnter Fellow at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC BarcelonaTech), Spain. She is part of the Research Group on Discrete, Combinatorial and Computational Geometry. Previously, she held postdoctoral positions at Utrecht University, Technical University of Denmark, and TU Eindhoven. Her research focuses on Combinatorial and Computational Geometry, Graph Drawing, and Algorithms for Robotics. She has been recognized with the Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellowship and received Excellent Course Evaluations for her teaching roles.

Education:

• PhD in Computer Science (2019) from Graz University of Technology, Austria (supervised by Oswin Aichholzer)
• Master's in Advanced Mathematics and Mathematical Engineering (2015) from UPC BarcelonaTech
• Bachelor's in Mathematical Engineering (2014) from Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Research Interests: Irene's work spans geometric algorithms, graph visualization, and modular robotics. She explores computational challenges in geometric configurations, such as perfect matchings, graph embeddings, and reconfiguration problems. Her contributions include novel algorithms for dynamic planar graphs and efficient robot motion strategies.

Key Achievements:

• Recipient of the Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellowship
• Best paper awards for 'On compatible matchings' and 'Saturated k-plane drawings with few edges'
• Excellent teaching evaluations for courses like Motion and Manipulation (Utrecht) and Data Structures (TU Eindhoven)

Teaching & Mentorship: Irene has coordinated courses in Numerical Computing and Numerical Methods at UPC. She has also lectured on Motion and Manipulation, Algorithms, and Topological Data Analysis. Her roles included teaching assistantships in Discrete Mathematics and Linear Algebra at UPC.

Labs & Collaborations: She collaborates with the Geometric Computing Group (Utrecht) and the Algorithms cluster (TU Eindhoven). Her work often involves interdisciplinary teams, addressing challenges in robotics, graph theory, and computational geometry.