Since 2015, I am working as a Senior Data Scientist at SoundCloud and I am also a visiting scientist at the Institute of Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Before that, I was a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Dr. Mounia Lalmas. I was also a research intern at Yahoo Labs Barcelona. In February 2015, I defended my Ph.D. thesis with the grade summa cum laude.

I am primarily working on user engagement, which includes the definition and evaluation of novel methods to measure engagement with and across websites, and the identification of ways to influence the engagement of users. I also investigate into the effect of online advertising on user engagement. Knowing how to engage users with a website is an important challenge, as engagement is one of the key factors that drives revenue in the online world. When users spent time on a website and return regularly to it, they are more likely to purchase something, to subscribe or pay for a service, and, even more important, to click on advertisements.
To achieve this, it is crucial to study and understand the browsing behavior of users on the Web which requires the examination of big data using methods such as web analytics, statistical analysis, machine learning techniques and complex network analysis. Some of the tools that I use to get meaningful results from big data are: Hadoop, Pig, Python, Java and R. The websites that I have been analyzed so far include the Yahoo network of sites, news sites, Twitter, Wikipedia and Wikidata.

I am providing the following information on my website:

• Information about my current projects
• List of publications
• List of activities (talks, reviews, awards, etc.)
• Curriculum vitae: complete | short

Recent achievements

• Feb 2015: After four years working on user engagement, and learning the ups and downs when trying to understand user behavior on the Web, I defended my Ph.D. in Barcelona with the grade summa cum laude. I want to thank my supervisors, Prof. Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Dr. Mounia Lalmas, and many others who accompanied me during that time with their knowledge and advice.
• Sep 2014: In 2013, I started a project with C. Müller-Birn, D. Laniado, M. Lalmas, and A. Kaltenbrunner about reader engagement in Wikipedia. I was especially interested in this project, as it shows that user engagment is also important for non-profit oriented websites. With the outcomes of our work, we received a lot of positive feedback from the Wikipedia community and won the Ted Nelson Newcomer Award at Hypertext.