Alberto Blanco
Researcher ( LIP Coimbra )
Email: alberto@coimbra.lip.pt
Phone: 239410661
Bio
Scientific and professional profile and career
His career is mainly focused on instrumentation and more specifically on the development of Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) technology, a gaseous particle detector, and associated instrumentation.
After finishing the Physics degree at the University of Santiago of Compostela, Spain, he started his pos-graduated studies in P. Fonte's group at Laboratory of Instrumentation and Particle physics (LIP), where he participated in two main topics: Positron Emission Tomography (PET) based on RPCs and RPCs for time-of-flight (TOF) measurements in high energy physics experiments, the latter leading to the construction of a detector for the HADES collaboration. In 2012, he presented the PhD thesis entitled "A SMALL ANIMAL PET PROTOTYPE WITH SUB-MILLIMETRE SPATIAL RESOLUTION BASED ON tRPCs", the world's first PET prototype based on RPC technology.
In 2016, he obtained a research assistant position at LIP, a position he currently holds. In 2018, he was appointed as leader of the RPC group at LIP succeeding P. Fonte. From 2016 until now, his work has focused, but not only, on:
Development of precise TOF-RPC technology in large areas, work that has been carried out in the framework of the international collaborations SHiP at CERN, HADES and R3B at FAIR (being member of the Collaboration Board (CB) and responsible for the RPC-based timing detector in the first one and member of the CB and technical coordinator of the RPC systems the second one).
Development of RPC technology for application in PET dedicated to small animals (for the development of therapies and pharmaceuticals) and humans.
Robust and autonomous RPC detectors, within the international collaborations AUGER, SWGO and SND@LHC.
Since the beginning of his career he has participated in more than 30 research projects, National, European and with Industry, of which 9 as PI or Co-PI managing more than 500 k€. He has attended more than 80 congresses/collaboration meetings and has published more than 240 articles.