Carmen Ballester

Robotic Engineer

PhD Student in Artificial Muscles

to Academia*

Hi there! I am Carmen Ballester, and I graduated as a Robotic Engineer from the University of Alicante in 2021. After that, I moved to Madrid to pursue a Master’s degree in Automation and Robotics, and I am now working on my PhD in Artificial Muscles and Soft Robotics, supported by the FPU Grant (Grants for the Training of University Teachers) funded by the Spanish Government.

I began my research career in 2019 as a research assistant at the University of Alicante, in the AUROVA research group, where I also developed my Bachelor’s Project in Mobile Robots. In 2021, I joined the RoboticsLab at UC3M, where I shifted my focus to Soft Robotics, working on low-level aspects such as Smart Materials and Non-linear Control.

Although I am comfortable working with software and new technologies, I like to say that I am a hardware girl—it’s much more fun, and definitely easier on the eyes than staring at a screen for 10 hours! I particularly enjoy electronics, design, and 3D printing, and in my spare time I am even learning woodworking.

I also began officially teaching in 2022, and I have been teaching ever since. I specialise in Control Engineering I for Electronics Engineering students and Robotics for Biomedical Engineering students. I honestly love teaching, my students are the best, and it is without a doubt one of the most rewarding aspects of an academic career.

If you want to know more, just send me an email! I’ll be happy to chat :)

*the sacred pursuit of accumulation, development and transmission of knowledge across generations