Computer Technologies and Environmental Engineering

About the Department

The Escuela Politécnica (Polytechnic School) of the UCAM is part of the Engineering area, offering bachelor’s and master's degrees in Architecture, Civil Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering, Computer Engineering and Building Services Engineering. These departments are made up of young but consolidated research groups, which bring together various lines within this field and which, in general terms, can be divided into: computational and applied. The computational lines are those that attempt to improve the theoretical-practical approach to engineering, among which we highlight the following: High-Performance Computing, which seeks to develop efficient computer applications, both in terms of time and consumption, to help solve problems that were unimaginable not so long ago; Computational Mechanics, which combines the principles of theoretical and applied mechanics with numerical methods and computer techniques in order to produce increasingly efficient models and simulations of processes; Multimedia Technologies, which uses signal processing and numerical methods to improve the quality and accuracy of new forms of communication and information; or Bioinformatics, which analyses biological problems that directly affect our environment, and offers possible alternatives for their study using computer techniques.

On the other hand, the applied lines focus on solving problems of interest to society in the field of the environment and sustainable development, using the knowledge, methodologies and techniques developed in theoretical research, with the fundamental objective of innovation and technology transfer. These include Territorial Engineering, Sustainability and Environment, aimed at the development of infrastructures and sustainable territorial models in balance with the environment, as well as the application of techniques that help solve the problems of natural resource degradation; and Hydrological Engineering, which develops and applies methodologies and procedures of analysis and calculation, in order to determine magnitudes and parameters of hydrological variables, both for the design and sizing of works and for the proper management of water resources.

Career Opportunities

The revival of the industrial sector, the creation of new professional profiles as well as the real use of scientific research (public and/or private) developed in recent years, justify the need to promote a knowledge-based economic model. This implies increasing the critical mass of researchers trained in the culture of technology transfer. In order to ensure that academic results reach the corporate world, offering innovative solutions to society's critical problems, generating wealth and fostering job creation through the creation of technology-based companies, it is necessary to promote multidisciplinary training and research environments and platforms. The framework of multidisciplinary work in the field of engineering offered by this PhD programme provides a great training opportunity for young researchers, developing PhD theses in a collaborative environment, with the challenge of tackling problems of great importance for society. For this reason, the main objective of this PhD programme is to train PhDs with great technical skills in different fields of knowledge, but who are also capable of bringing their research closer to the business world. Future PhD students of this programme have the following career options:

• Postdoctoral research in the area of Engineering and the Environment, and due to the multidisciplinary training, in other knowledge areas such as Health Sciences.
  
• University lecturer.
• The training focused on engineering professionals and researchers.
• R&D&I departments of technology companies. In this respect, a series of agreements have been signed with companies participating in the programme.