Dr. Alfredo Núñez Vicencio – About me

Short Bio

Alfredo Núñez is an Associate Professor at Delft University of Technology, specializing in intelligent railway infrastructures. His expertise lies in intelligent transportation systems, railway engineering, and computational intelligence, with over 150 journal and conference publications (see Publication List). The Dutch Research Council, ProRail, and European projects such as IAM4RAIL, In2Track3 and NeTIRail-INFRA have supported his research. As a recognised leader in his field, Dr. Núñez has played key roles in various EU projects and served as an associate editor and guest editor for leading journals, including IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems - IEEE, Applied Soft Computing - Elsevier, and Intelligent Transportation Infrastructure - Oxford Academic. He has also contributed to major transportation conferences as a member of the local organization committee (IEEE-ITSC 2013, TRISTAN IX, CM2018) and as a speaker, delivering over 50 conference and workshop presentations. Dr. Núñez has mentored numerous PhD researchers and MSc and EngD students, with some of them receiving prestigious awards, such as the European Rail Research Advisory Council PhD thesis award, the PWI Young Achiever Award, two in the list of best conference papers and one best journal paper award in 2024. He is also dedicated to education, developing online professional courses, and contributing to redesigning courses and MSc programs. At TU Delft, he belongs to the teaching teams of Dynamica en Modelvorming, Transportation Infrastructures, Road and Railway Engineering, Transportation Infrastructures under Extreme Conditions, Emerging Technologies for Transportation Infrastructure, and Structural Health Monitoring. Additionally, he is actively involved in academic and industry collaborations, serving as a member of the 4TU Built Environment’s Domain Acceleration Team for Infrastructure, the CiTG Faculty ED&I team, and cluster leader of task in railway infrastructure for ERJU FP3.

Here you can see some pictures and videos of my work and my personal life.

Work record

My CV and publications can be found here: Curriculum Vitae (.pdf), Publication List (.pdf).

Aug. 2021-Present:

Full-time Associate Professor (UHD), TU Delft, Section of Railway Engineering, Department of Engineering Structures, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Topic: Intelligent railway infrastructure. Keywords: Railway engineering, computational intelligence (neural networks, fuzzy logic, and evolutionary computation), structural health monitoring, maintenance of engineering structures, control of railway systems, asset management of transportation infrastructures, big data, and optimization.

Nov. 2018-Jul. 2021:

Full-time Assistant Professor (UD), TU Delft, Section of Railway Engineering, Department of Engineering Structures, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Topic: Data-based maintenance for railway infrastructure. Keywords: Decision support in railway systems, big data-based and AI-based maintenance decision-making for railway infrastructure.

Feb. 2016-Oct. 2018:

Full-time Assistant Professor (permanent, researcher/docent), TU Delft, Section of Railway Engineering, Department of Engineering Structures, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Topic: Structural condition monitoring and maintenance of railways.

Feb. 2013-Jan. 2016:

Full-time researcher, TU Delft, Section of Railway Engineering, CiTG Faculty, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Topic: Rail systems and monitoring. Supervisor: Prof. Zili Li.

Feb. 2010-Jan. 2013:

Full-time postdoctoral researcher, TU Delft, Delft Center for Systems and Control, 3mE Faculty, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Topic: Hierarchical and distributed model-based predictive control for urban and freeway traffic control. Supervisor: Prof. Bart De Schutter.

Mar. 2006-Dec. 2009:

Doctorate researcher and lecturer, UChile-fcƒm, Laboratorio de Control Avanzado II, Electrical Engineering Department, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile. On December 11, 2009, I was awarded the first PhD degree in Electrical Engineering of the university. Thesis: Design of hybrid predictive control strategies for optimizing operational processes in dynamic transport systems (UChile Repository). Grade: Congratulations from the examination committee (the highest distinction). Thesis advisor: Dr. Doris Sáez H. Thesis co-advisor: Dr. Cristian E. Cortés C.

Aug. 2007-Dec. 2008:

Part-time instructor at the Faculty of Engineering, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile. In August 2008, the following award was conferred: Outstanding Instructor - Electrical Engineering.

Mar. 2000-Dec. 2005:

BSc. and MSc. student, UChile-fcƒm, in electrical engineering at Universidad de Chile. Specialization: Systems and Control. Bachelor in Engineering Science, Electrical Engineering, conferred on August 15, 2005. Master in Engineering and Science, Electrical Engineering (Systems and Control), and the title of Civil Electrical Engineer were conferred on May 25, 2007. Thesis: Hybrid predictive control strategies, with applications in a dynamic vehicle routing process (in Spanish). Grade: Highest distinction, grade 7.0/7.0 in both MSc degree and engineer title. Thesis advisor: Dr. Doris Sáez. Thesis co-advisor: Dr. Cristian Cortés.

Editorial work

Sep. 2025- Sep. 2026:

Guest editor special issue CM2025 journal Wear, Elsevier.

Jan. 2025- present:

Associate Editor of the journal Intelligent Transportation Infrastructure, Oxford.

Mar. 2024- present:

Associate Editor of the journal Applied Soft Computing, Elsevier.

Sep. 2022- Sep. 2023:

Guest editor special issue CM2022 journal Wear, Elsevier.

Jan. 2023- Mar. 2024:

Guest editor special issue journal Control Engineering Practice, Elsevier.

May. 2022- Dec. 2024:

Editorial Board Member of the journal Intelligent Transportation Infrastructure, Oxford.

Apr. 2019-present:

Associate Editor of the journal IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society, IEEE.

Sep. 2018- Sep. 2019:

Guest editor special issue CM2018 journal Wear, Elsevier.

Jul. 2018-present:

Editorial Board member of the journal Applied Soft Computing, Elsevier.

Research visits

Dec. 2024- Jan. 2025:

Visiting research scholar, University of Chile, Chile, Electrical Engineering Department. Host: Dr. Doris Sáez.

Jul. 2024:

Visiting research scholar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Laboratory of Modelling, Simulation and Control. Host: Prof. Igor Škrjanc.

Mar. 2024:

Visiting research scholar, University of Maryland, USA, A. James Clark School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Host: Prof. Nii Attoh-Okine..

Mar. 2023:

Visiting research scholar, University of Maryland, USA, A. James Clark School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Host: Prof. Nii Attoh-Okine..

Feb. 2023:

Visiting research scholar, University of Seville, Spain, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automatica. Host: Prof. José Ramón Dominguez Frejo..

Nov. 2018-Jan. 2019:

Visiting research scholar, University of California Berkeley, USA, ITSBerkeley, Institute of Transportation Studies. Sponsoring/advising faculty member: Prof. Zuo-Jun Max Shen. Host: Prof. Alexandre Bayen.

Jul. 2017:

Visiting research scholar, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Host: Prof. Ni Yiqing.

Jul. 2017:

Visiting research scholar, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China, School of Electrical Engineering. Host: Prof. Zhigang Liu.

Mar. 2015:

Visiting research scholar, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín, Colombia, School of Mechatronics, Faculty of Engineering. Host: Prof. Jairo Espinosa.

Aug. 2013:

Visiting research scholar, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín, Colombia, School of Mechatronics, Faculty of Engineering. Host: Prof. Jairo Espinosa.

May 2013 – Jun. 2013:

Visiting research scholar, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, Electrical Engineering Department. Host: Dr. Doris Sáez.

Nov. 2012 - Dec. 2012:

Visiting research scholar, Technical University of Catalunya, Spain, Automatic Control Department (ESAII). Host: Prof. Carlos Ocampo-Martinez.

Apr. 2011 - May. 2011:

Visiting research scholar, University of Pavia, Italy, Identification and Control of Dynamic Systems Laboratory. Host: Prof. Antonella Ferrara.

May. 2010:

Visiting research scholar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Laboratory of Modelling, Simulation and Control. Host: Prof. Igor Škrjanc.

Dec. 2008- Jun. 2009:

Visiting Ph.D researcher, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Laboratory of Modelling, Simulation and Control. Host: Prof. Igor Škrjanc.

Jul. 2006:

Visiting Ph.D researcher, University of California at Irvine, California, USA, Institute of Transportation Studies. Host: Prof. Jay Jayakrishnan.