These awards, instituted by the Generalitat in 1982, want to distinguish the people and entities that have contributed significantly to the development of science and technology in Catalonia.
This award is named after an inventor and politician. Narcis Monturiol, born in Figueres in 1819 developed a submarine and a tram, among others. He also created several magazines and newspapers.
About Prof. Jordi Torra
Since the start of the Gaia project, the University of Barcelona has taken a great interest in various aspects of the project, including the photometric aspects, data simulation, and the studies of the prototype data analysis system. In 1999, ESA awarded a contract to the Madrid software company GMV for a study of the data analysis environment for Gaia, a major study supported by the University of Barcelona. Jordi Torra leads the Barcelona work on the data analysis system, liasing with the data base efforts of GMV, the supercomputing centre of Catalunya which supplies the hardware required for the study, and the scientific algorithms provided by the Gaia scientific teams. Jordi is co-leader of the scientific working group on the data processing prototype.
About Prof. Licia Verde
Licia Verde is an astrophysicist with interest in cosmology, which is the study of the origin, evolution and composition of the universe.
Her research topics include theoretical cosmology, cosmic microwave background, large-scale structure, statistical applications and data analysis.
She is interested in the study of the "large-scale distribution of galaxies" and the statistical properties of the heat left over from the big bang to shed light on the universe composition, including the dark energy component, and its history.
She is involved with several projects: Sloan Digital Sky survey III, DESI, Euclid.
