Dr. Juan Carlos Castro-Palacio
Postdoctoral Researcher
School of Engineering and Materials Science
Queen Mary University of London, UK
Physicist and Materials Scientist specialising in computational modelling, molecular simulation, and machine learning. I develop atomistic and data-driven methods to understand and predict molecular interactions, materials behaviour, and interfacial processes, combining molecular dynamics, machine-learned interatomic potentials, statistical mechanics, optimisation, and scientific computing to accelerate materials modelling and discovery.Some related institutions:
Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Technology (Havana) (BSc & PhD), Weizmann Institute of Sciences (Israel) (2005), University of Tokyo (2007-2009), University of Basel (Switzerland) (2013-2015), Imperial College London (2015-2018), Technical University of Madrid (2018-2019, 2020-2021), Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) (2021-2026).
Email: j.c.castropalacio@qmul.ac.uk
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Latest
Research stays
- Academic visit to Florida International University (April, 2026).
- Research stay with Prof. Ricardo Grau’s group at Queen Mary University of London (January–April 2026).
- Research stay with Prof. Georg Held’s group at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron (UK), conducted in close collaboration with Prof. Ricardo Grau’s group at the University of Reading, (UK) (January–July 2025).
Articles
- M. Urbiztondo, J.C. Castro-Palacio, R. Grau-Crespo and S. Hamad. Gradient-Aware Genetic Algorithms for Global Optimization of Molecular Adsorption on Surfaces, accepted in ACS Materials Au (2026).
- M. Orellana-Panchame, P. Fernández de Córdoba and J. C. Castro-Palacio, From Linear Hazard Dynamics to Rayleigh Behavior: Identification of Early-Time Survival Regimes, Symmetry 18, 1585, 2026.
- Cavity formation dynamics in gold nanoparticles (10–50 nm) upon femtosecond laser irradiation. B. Khammar, F. Fernández-Lima, P. Fernández de Córdoba, J. A. Monsoriu, and J. C. Castro-Palacio, Phys. Scr. 100, 075920, 2025.
Conferences
- Oral contribution at the COST Innovators Grant IG18234 – “Machine learning from computational materials science data for modelling nanocrystal catalysts” on 16-18 July 2025, Budapest, Hungary.
- Oral contribution at the Summer Meeting 2024 of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), July 6-11, 2024, Boston, MA.
Member of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) since 2024.
Awards
- Award for Innovative Activity in Scientific Communication and Dissemination by Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain (October 2022). (As a member of the team that received the award).
- Prize for the Best Physics Teaching Article published in the journal of the Royal Physical Society of Spain in 2018.
https://rsef.es/images/Fisica/FalloJuradoPdeF_2019.pdf (page 5)
Press release
- Interview with Physics magazine (Americal Physical Society) to talk about “Smartphones in Physics teaching” (Date: 6-4-2020).
“You cannot take home a whole physics laboratory, but most people have a smartphone,” says Juan Carlos Castro Palacio …. with a phone, you can conduct experiments on most of the topics of a general physics lab, he says.
fragment from the article: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/68