• Could you tell us a few words about your background? I grew up in Pamplona, a small city in the north of Spain, but I always knew I wanted to leave my hometown for my university degrees. Therefore, I moved to Madrid to study the 4-year BSc in Physics at Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). I took my first Astrophysics courses during the third year of the bachelor’s, and that is when I realized I wanted to learn more about the Universe.  Thus, the following two summers I completed two introductory research stays at the University of Aarhus (Denmark) and at the University of Bologna (Italy), respectively. Once I finished the bachelor’s, I started the MSc in Astrophysics at UCM, during which I completed my master’s thesis on X-ray astronomy at ESA/ESAC.  After my master’s, I had the opportunity to keep working on X-ray astrophysics, first with a 3-month stay at Dr. Karl Remeis Observatory (Bamberg, Germany), and then for 11 months at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Maryland, U.S.). I finally started the PhD in Astrophysics at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

• What is the most exciting thing about your job ? Trying to understand why the Universe behaves as we observe, and aiming to explain it with the laws of physics is fascinating. I believe scientific research is very intellectually stimulating, creative, and rewarding, as the main goal is to find and do things that have never been seen or done before. Last but not least, working with data from space-based telescopes – some of the most technologically-advanced tools humanity has ever built – is an amazing opportunity.

• Why did you choose to become a scientist ? My parents are both physicists, so science has always been part of my life. Besides, the subjects that I always found most interesting at school were Physics and Mathematics. All of this led me to study the bachelor’s in Physics, and the rest of the journey to the PhD happened gradually, step by step.

Figure Caption: (Left) Vicente standing next to the scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Maryland, U.S.) in August 2025. (Right) Vicente visiting The Alambra (Granada, Spain) in summer 2023.

• What is the main focus of your PhD project ? During my PhD I am going to work on observational data and simulations of the fastest and most energetic outflows launched in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Regarding the observations, I will analyze how the emission of these outflows varies with energy and time, aiming to constrain their structure, acceleration, and impact on their surroundings. On the other hand, I am developing (and will make publicly available) a machine learning tool that will significantly speed up the simulations of these outflows, ultimately giving the community the opportunity of exploring them much more efficiently.

• What do you do for fun? Beyond the usual hobbies (traveling, working out…), I really enjoy watching motorsports (especially MotoGP), and I am also interested in human space exploration.