Departament de Física

Alex Ferrer Ferre

Associate professor
Campus Terrassa (UPC), Edifici TR45
Colom, 11
08222 Terrassa

E-Mail: alex.ferrerupc.edu
Web personal: https://sites.google.com/view/alexferrer

Short CV

Alex Ferrer is an assistant professor at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC BarcelonaTech) spending one year on leave as sponsored researcher at the University of Oxford, Mathematical Institute.
He is currently also a research associate at CIMNE. He has been publishing ~15 top peer-review Q1 journal. He was awarded as a Marie Curie Fellowship at Ecole Polytechnique where he spend three years as a postdoc. He has received some national and international distinctions as Serra Hunter fellow, Hadamard fellow and Marie Curie Co-Fund fellowship.
He has been Principal Investigator of three research projects and he has participate in a total of 8 ones, including an ERC Advanced grant and H2020 projects. He has already supervised a PhD and he is currently supervising two more. He has also supervised more than 15 master/graduate thesis. He has also received distinctions for teaching and mentoring. He is currently an European Comission expert reviewing Marie Curie fellowships.
Recently, he has been promoted as an associate professor at UPC (expected starting day: September 2023). Although his main research topic is Topology optimization, he has been publishing in different topics in the computational mechanics field like: multi-scale analysis, domain decomposition, reduced order models, inverse problems, fluid mechanics, dehomogenization, level-set methods, damage models, uncertainty quantification and composite materials. Some of his publications have been awarded as top-10 most downloaded publications of the Journal.


1- Phase-field modeling of fracture via homogenization
Villalta, G.; Ferrer, A.; Otero, F.
International journal of fracture 249, article 46 (2025)

2- Global length and overhang control for level set and density approaches via perimeter minimization
Torres, J.; Otero, F.; Ferrer, A.
International journal for numerical methods in engineering 126, 2, article e7662 (2025)

3- bROM: An extension of beam theory through model order reduction
Rubio, R.; Ferrer, A.; Hernandez, J.A.; Martinez, X.
Computers & structures 297, 107326 (2024)

4- Definition of a beam-like reduced order model element by means of a mixed dimensional coupling
Turon, F.; Otero, F.; Ferrer, A.; Martinez, X.
Computers & structures 302, Article 107466 (2024)

5- Stress-constrained topology optimization for commercial software: a Python implementation for ABAQUS®
Fernandes, P.; Ferrer, A.; Gonçalves, P.; Parente, M.; Pinto, R.; Correia, N.
Applied sciences (Basel) 13, 12916 (2023)

6- A consistent approximation of the total perimeter functional for topology optimization algorithms
Amstutz, S.; Dapogny, C.; Ferrer, A.
ESAIM. COCV 28, 18:1-18:71 (2022)

7- Performance analysis of a damage tolerant composite self-deployable elastic-hinge
Fernandes, P.; Pinto, R.; Ferrer, A.; Correia, N.
Composite structures 288, 115407:1-115407:10 (2022)

8- Stress minimization for lattice structures. Part I: Micro-structure design
Ferrer, A.; Geoffroy-Donders, P.; Allaire, G.
Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences 379, 20200109/1-20200109/34 (2021)

9- Inverse homogenization using the topological derivative
Ferrer, A.; Giusti, S.
Engineering computations , 1-21 (2021)

10- SIMP-ALL: a generalized SIMP method based on the topological derivative concept
Ferrer, A.
International journal for numerical methods in engineering 120, 361-381 (2019)

11- Large-scale stochastic topology optimization using adaptive mesh refinement and coarsening through a two-level parallelization scheme
Baiges, J.; Martínez, J.; Herrero, D.; Otero, F.; Ferrer, A.
Computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering 343, 186-206 (2019)

12- A consistent relaxation of optimal design problems for coupling shape and topological derivatives
Amstutz, S.; Dapogny, C.; Ferrer, A.
Numerische mathematik 140, 35-94 (2018)

13- Two-scale topology optimization in computational material design: an integrated approach
Ferrer, A.; Cante, J.; Hernandez, J.A.; Oliver, J.
International journal for numerical methods in engineering 114, 232-254 (2018)

14- Approximating the Basset force by optimizing the method of van Hinsberg et al.
Casas, G.; Ferrer, A.; Oñate, E.
Journal of computational physics 352, 142-171 (2018)

15- The domain interface method in non-conforming domain decomposition multifield problemsdomain decomposition multifield problems
Lloberas-Valls, O.; Cafiero, M.; Cante, J.; Ferrer, A.; Oliver, J.
Computational mechanics 59, 579-610 (2017)

16- Dimensional hyper-reduction of nonlinear finite element models via empirical cubature
Hernandez, J.A.; Caicedo, M.; Ferrer, A.
Computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering 313, 687-722 (2017)

17- Vademecum-based approach to multi-scale topological material design
Ferrer, A.; Oliver, J.; Cante, J.; Lloberas-Valls, O.
Advanced modeling and simulation in engineering sciences 3, 1 (2016)

18- Topological sensitivity analysis in heterogeneous anisotropic elasticity problem: theoretical and computational aspects
Giusti, S.; Ferrer, A.; Oliver, J.
Computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering 311, 134-150 (2016)