Eva Romano, researcher at IHCantabria, receives an award for the best doctoral thesis of the Smart Ports Chair

Eva Romano Moreno, researcher of the Ports and Coastal Infrastructures Group of the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics of Cantabria (IHCantabria), has received one of the Smart Ports Chair Awards, in the category of Best Doctoral Thesis, in a ceremony held on March 10 at the facilities of the Port of Castellón, in the Valencian Community. These awards are granted by the Universitat Jaume I and the Port Authority of Castellón.

According to the president of the Port Authority of Castellón, Rubén Ibáñez, these awards “allow us to develop solutions applicable to the port reality, promoting a more efficient and intelligent management model”. With these awards, the effort and excellence of the researchers who have received the award is recognized, whose “work is a reflection of the talent and dedication necessary to face the challenges of the future”.

Eva Romano thanked the Universitat Jaume I and the Port Authority of Castellón for the award, which she received in recognition of the contribution of her doctoral thesis, entitled “Multi-process characterization of port operability” and directed by the professors of the University of Cantabria, Gabriel Díaz Hernández and Javier López Lara, within the doctoral program in “Coastal Engineering, Hydrobiology and Management of Aquatic Systems” of the University of Cantabria (IH2O Program). The results of Romano’s doctoral research have been published in several scientific journals, such as Coastal Engineering.

At the award ceremony of the II Smart Ports Chair Awards, the president of the Port Authority of Castellón, Rubén Ibáñez, stressed that “every year we see projects with a higher level of applicability and aligned with the real needs of the sector. These initiatives not only benefit the port of Castellón, but also contribute to the modernization and sustainability of the entire port ecosystem”.

The director of the Smart Ports Chair, Francisco Toledo, pointed out that “both Eva Romano (Best Doctoral Thesis Award), Fernando Manzano (Best Master’s Thesis Award) and Iván Monzón (Best Bachelor’s Thesis Award) have contributed, with their respective works, to innovation, research and knowledge of smart ports and that this is the main criterion that has led the evaluation committees of the awards to opt for their candidacies, among all those submitted to this call”.

Toledo explained that the Smart Ports Chair Awards are one of the outstanding actions to “encourage the development of the ports of the future and join objectives between companies and port authorities to achieve that, as determined by the Strategic Framework of State Ports, in 2030 we will have seven smart ports, in line with the criteria of the UNE 178110 Standard, approved last November. We are already on that path and the Port Authority of Castellón wants to be in this septet”. He also stressed that the awards of the chair he directs allow to visualize very interesting works from the point of view of research and innovation, “opening the possibility for companies and port authorities to incorporate them to develop more efficient and sustainable ports”.

The winning proposals

In this edition, the Smart Ports Chair Awards recognized the efficient methodology to advance towards a multi-process and multivariable characterization of port operability, by choosing as Best Doctoral Thesis the work developed by Eva Romano Moreno. She holds a PhD in Coastal Engineering, Hydrobiology and Aquatic Systems Management from the University of Cantabria, and is a researcher at IHCantabria. Her thesis, entitled Multi-process characterization of port operability, develops an inference model based on machine learning that allows the prediction of agitation levels in sheltered waters, visualized through a graphical interface, and the response to them of the vessels moored for the different mooring plans. In this way, the choice that allows a better operability is made possible.

It has been successfully applied and validated in the Dársena de África (Port of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria) and has resulted in five publications in indexed journals, two proceedings, eight oral presentations at conferences and the Modesto Vigueras 2023 Award (Technical Association of Ports and Coasts).

The developed methodology is already applied in the PROAS, ECCLIPSE, SEALIFT and SAMOA-2 systems and can be applied for the construction of offshore works, offshore wind floating elements or for the evaluation of wave energy potential.

More information about the Smart Ports Chair and about the II Smart Ports Chair Awards, through the following link: https://bit.ly/3Fjfexv