Jose Maria Sierra Fernandez

Jose Maria Sierra Fernandez serves as Professor in the Department of Automation, Electronics, Architecture and Computer Networks Engineering at the University of Cadiz, Spain. He maintains dual affiliations with the Institute of Viticulture and Agri-Food Research (IVAGRO) and leads the TIC168 Computational Instrumentation and Industrial Electronics research group, focusing on power quality instrumentation and renewable energy integration. His institutional email address is josemaria.sierra@uca.es.

He earned his PhD from the University of Cadiz in 2017 with the thesis "Techniques and measurement procedures based on spectral kurtosis. An application in the analysis of electrical power quality," supervised by Dr. Juan José González de la Rosa and Dr. Jose Carlos Palomares Salas. This foundational work established his expertise in higher-order statistics for power system analysis.

His research centers on power quality monitoring using higher-order statistics (HOS), with significant contributions to voltage supply characterization, photovoltaic transient analysis, and real-time synchronized sensor networks. Key innovations include HOS-based instrumentation for detecting voltage sags, frequency deviations in hydropower systems, and cloud-induced photovoltaic transients. His work bridges theoretical signal processing with practical smart grid applications, emphasizing renewable energy integration and grid stability.

Recent publications (2022-2025) demonstrate consistent output in power quality instrumentation, with 15+ annual papers showing evolution from foundational HOS techniques toward meteorological integration for solar forecasting and ESP32-based real-time monitoring systems. His research increasingly addresses practical grid challenges through virtual instruments, measurement campaigns, and publicly available weather data utilization.

Scientific Awards:

• No awards or fellowships were documented in the provided materials.

Advising and Grants:

• Thesis supervision activities are indicated through "Theses" section references, though specific student names and grant details remain undisclosed.

Labs and Teams:

• Leads TIC168 Computational Instrumentation and Industrial Electronics research group at IVAGRO
• Develops instrumentation for voltage/frequency monitoring, irradiance networks, and power quality event detection
• Collaborates on measurement campaigns using Python/Grafana systems and wireless sensor networks