2023 - february • Non-linear evolution of the welfare state

Albert Fert

Researcher and Nobel Prize Winner in Physics

Albert Fert is a French physicist who is best known for discovering giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in 1988 and for his pioneering research in a new field of electronics known as spintronics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007 together with Peter Grünberg.

He was born in Carcassonne (France) and has been a professor at Paris-Sud University since 1976. He is currently professor emeritus at Paris-Saclay University. He is credited as being one of the researchers who founded the Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales in 1995.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Albert Fert has received many other awards, including the American Physical Society’s International Prize for New Materials (1994), the Japan Prize (2007) and the Wolf Prize in Physics (2007). He is also a member of the French Academy of Sciences and has received honorary doctorates from more than a dozen universities around the world.

Since January 2020, he has been a researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).

Cristina Monge

Political scientist and lecturer at the University of Zaragoza

Political scientist with a PhD from the University of Zaragoza, where she teaches sociology. Her areas of interest are sustainability and the quality of democracy, with a particular focus on governance for ecological transition, which she works on at research centres such as Globernance, BC3 and itdUPM. She is also a member of the board of trustees of Ecodes.

She is a member of the advisory board of Llorente y Cuenca and of Ethic magazine. She is involved in the Open Government Forum, the Advisory Council on Development Cooperation and the Methodological Advisory Group for the accountability project “Cumpliendo” run by the Spanish Prime Minister's Office.

She is the author of “15M: Un movimiento político para democratizar la sociedad” (The 15M Movement: A Political Project to Democratise Society) (2017), and she coordinated the collective work “Tras la indignación. 15M: Miradas desde el presente” (After the Outrage. The 15M Movement: Today’s Perspectives) (2021). She co-authored “Hackear la Política” (Hacking Polirtics) (2018) with Raúl Oliván, and “La Iniciativa Social de Mediación de los conflictos del agua en Aragón” (The Social Initiative for Mediating Water Conflicts in Aragon) (2019) with JJ Verón, in collaboration with Gedisa, and she chairs the “Más Democracia” Association.