Alejandro A. Franco

Biography

Alejandro A. Franco is Full Professor at LRCS (Amiens, France), and since October 2016 Junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He was permanent research engineer and lead the Modelling Group of electrochemical systems at CEA (Grenoble, France) in the period January 2006-January 2013.

For more than 17 years, his research consists in developing multiscale models for the numerical simulation of electrochemical devices for energy storage and conversion, such as lithium air and lithium sulfur batteries, redox flow and lithium ion batteries, polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers. These models, based on theoretical approaches pioneered by himself, allow to perform in silico studies of the physicochemical mechanisms taking place at multiple spatiotemporal scales in these devices during their operation. In addition, they allow to establish links between chemical and microstructural properties of the materials, and their performance and durability. In combination with dedicated experiments, and thanks to their predictive nature, these models prove to be very helpful to optimize the design of the next generations of batteries and fuel cells. Prof. Franco also works at developing hybrid models combining physical-based models with artificial intelligence algorithms.

Prof. Franco was/is coordinator and/or Work Package leader in numerous national and european projects (as PI and as a partner), and in projects in collaboration with companies such as Renault, SAFT and IRT-Saint Exupery. He is author of more than 70 publications, 10 invited book chapters, 20 granted patents, and edited 3 books and 2 journal special issues. He delivered more than 50 Invited Presentations (including several keynotes) in international conferences and more than 35 invited seminars in first class institutions (e.g. MIT, ANL, LBNL, Stanford Univ.). He organized 10 international conferences and 2 international schools.

He is the recipient of the P.E.D.R., of the Chercheur Haut Niveau Laureate (Region Hauts-de-France) and he is ERC Consolidator grantee since 2017.

His teaching activities include two lecture-series he created (44 h/y) where he implements cutting-edge teaching methods, using in particular Virtual Reality technology: one on fuel cells (Erasmus Master M.E.S.C.) and one on non-equilibrium thermodynamics (UPJV Doctoral School).