Dr. Abbas is a young Associate Professor at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid who started his academic career in the field of concentrated solar power during his PhD, defended in 2015. After his thesis, he has diversified the areas of interest including thermal energy systems dynamic behaviour; design, analysis and optimization of advanced thermodynamic cycles; turbomachinery for advanced cycles; and, more recently, Carnot Batteries.

He has participated in 10 research projects (1 H2020, 3 Plan Estatal, 1 CDTI EEA Grants, 1 FP7, 2 regional-CAM, 1 UPM program), in addition to 1 project funded by IASS-Postdam and several contracts with the industry. Among these projects, one could highlight Application of Solar Thermal Energy to Processes (ASTEP) project, a H2020 project whose proposal was based on 3 patents (Rubén as a co-inventor) and seeks the design, construction and test of two innovative concentrators, SunDial, achieving TRL 6. Dr. Abbas is the Principal Investigator of UPM in this project, with a granted amount above 700 k-euro. The work developed by UPM includes the concentrator design, the system and control design with dynamic analysis and the construction and test at lab scale of the system (TRL 4 -> 5). This project has led so far to the publication of three articles in Q1 journals and more than 10 communications, oral and poster, in international congresses.

Also, Dr Abbas is currently the Principal Investigator of a Plan Estatal project, Turbomachinery for advanced power cycles, with a budget of 54.450 euros. This project is the subproject of a coordinated project named Advanced Integration of Combined Cycles in Solar Thermal Power Plants (AdInCCSol). This project analyses four innovative designs of integrated solar combined cycles where the natural gas energy input is minimized. UPM contributes to the design and analysis of one of the configurations, and designs specifically the Fresnel solar collector for this configuration and the turbomachinery for organic Rankine bottoming cycles. Furthermore, UPM has analysed a particle curtain central receiver for other of the configurations in collaboration with Sandia National laboratories. As a result of this project, Dr. Abbas is the author of 7 articles published in 6 Q1 and 1 Q2 journal, in addition of more than 10 communications in international congresses.

As a result of his academic trajectory, Dr. Abbas is author of 28 articles in indexed journal, including 24 in journals rated Q1 and 26 T1, with an h-index of 17 according to Scopus. He is the first author of 9 of them, and second author of 11. Furthermore, the first author of 8 of the articles is one student of Dr. Abbas. One should highlight that these articles have been published in collaboration with other entities as UNED (16 articles), IMDEA Energía (1 article), King Abdulaziz University (2 articles), IASS-Postdam (2 articles) y con SANDIA National Laboratories (1 article). Amont the co-authors, Prof. Carlo Rubbia (Nobel Prize, Italy) is included in the two publications that resulted from the project with IASS-Postdam.

One can conclude from the projects where Dr. Abbas has been involved and the collaborations in the publications that he has a clear international perspective in his work, which has led him to publish papers with Prof. Carlo Rubbia (Nobel Prize, Italy), Dr. Ho (SANDIA laboratories, USA) and Prof. Sait (Saudi Arabia), in addition to congresses with Prof. Reay and Prof. Stojceska (Brunel University). As it has been seen previously, he has participated in a FP7 project and is PI of a H2020 project. Furthermore, he has recently coordinated a proposal for a HE project with a budget of 7 M-euro that was the only proposal selected in the wating list (not granted so far) and he has started contacts to coordinate a Doctoral Network is the next call.

Regarding knowledge transfer, Dr. Abbas is the co-inventor of 16 patents, where 3 of them are being exploited at current time in H2020 ASTEP project. Furthermore, he has been involved in many contracts with the industry and public sector, including IDEA, with a summed budget of more than 150 k-euro. At current time, he is the PI of an industrial PhD that has started recently with a budget of 90 k-euro for the academic part.

Dr. Abbas is the director of a thesis recently defended, developed under the umbrella of 2 Plan Estatal projects. This thesis led to the publication of 3 Q1 papers and several contributions to international congresses. At current time, he is the director of two PhD thesis: one of them is funded by the ASTEP project and will be defended in September 2024, as it has led so far to the publication of 3 articles in Q1 journals. The second one is an industrial PhD funded by Comunidad the Madrid with 90.000 euro that has started recently. Also, Dr. Abbas is the director of one Juan de la Cierva (2021) postdoctoral researcher and a Ramón y Cajal (2022) postdoctoral researcher invited by Dr. Abbas will soon be integrated in the group. Also, a Juan de la Cierva (2022) candidate was selected, but he renounced to the contract due to personal reasons.