Dr. Alfredo Núñez Vicencio – Team and visitor scholars

Wassamon Phusakulkajorn, topic: Artificial intelligence methodologies for engineering structures. Postdoc researcher, July 2024 - today, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez.

Siwarak Unsiwilai, topic: Condition assessment of railway track embankments. Postdoc researcher, June 2024 - today, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Zili Li and Dr. Alfredo Núñez.

Taniya Kapoor, topic: Advanced physics informed machine learning and applications. Postdoc researcher, June 2024 - today Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Dr. Hongrui Wang and Dr. Alfredo Núñez.

Yuanchen Zeng, topic: Vehicle-mounted laser Doppler vibrometer for railway monitoring. Postdoc researcher, IAM4RAIL project, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Zili Li and Dr. Alfredo Núñez.

Pan Zhang, topic: Railway track and systems dynamics. Postdoctoral researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Zili Li and Dr. Alfredo Núñez.

Marco Andres Auza Sanchez, topic: Digital and AI-driven process solutions for sustainable concrete. PhD researcher, Section of Resources and Recycling, Department of Engineering Structures, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Daily Supervisor and co-promotor: Dr. Yongli Wu. Promotor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: PhD researcher, since June 2024.

Nikhil Manakshya, topic: Real-time assessment and control of electric locomotives for traction and braking. PhD researcher, IAM4RAIL project, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Promotor: Prof. Zili Li. Daily Supervisors: Dr. Alfredo Núñez and Dr. Hongrui Wang. Current position: PhD researcher, since November 2023.

Reza Riahi Samani, topic: Data-driven prediction and decision making for maintenance of railway tracks. PhD researcher, IAM4RAIL project, Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Bart De Schutter. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: PhD researcher, since August 2023.

Tim Vernaillen, topic: Rail wear and rolling contact fatigue. PhD researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet and Prof. Zili Li. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: Part-time PhD researcher since July 2018, and Track Maintenance Civil Engineer at Infrabel, Belgium.

Jurjen Hendriks, topic: Big data based structural health monitoring to optimize railway maintenance. PhD researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: Part-time PhD researcher, since February 2018.

Zulkifli Hidayat, topic: Distributed sensing and state estimation. Part time PhD researcher, Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Robert Babuska and Prof. Bart De Schutter. Daily supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez.

Bojan Bogojević, topic: Robust rail surface defect detection based on axle box accelerations of in-service passenger trains. Engineering Doctorate researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Chair: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet. Supervisors: Alfredo Núñez and Theo Kruse (ProRail). Committee: Prof. Rob Goverde, Ellard Groenewegen, Ilse Oonk. Current position: Full-time PDEng researcher, since September 2023.

Xinxin Yu, topic: Multibody dynamics and traction control for friction monitoring in railway systems. Postdoc researcher, August 2023 - June 2024, IAM4RAIL project, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Zili Li. Supervisor on IAM4RAIL related topics: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: Assistant Professor, Tampere University, Pirkanmaa, Finland, since June 2024.

Dr. Hongrui Wang, topic: Big Data and AI methods for railway catenary asset management. Postdoc researcher, August 2019 - December 2020, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering Structures, TUDelft, since December 2020.

Dr. Ali Jamshidi, topic: Multiobjective design for rail maintenance optimization. Postdoc, February 2018 - July 2018, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet and Dr. Zili Li. Daily Supervisor: Alfredo Núñez. Last known position: Lead Development Engineer at Willow.

Dr. Maider Oregui, topic: Needs Tailored Interoperable Railway. Postdoc, August 2015 - March 2016, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Dr. Zili Li. Daily Supervisor: Alfredo Núñez. Last known position: Structural Calculations Engineer, CAF. Maider was awarded the Young Researcher Award of the International Union of Railways UIC to recognize young engineers and researchers who have made significant contributions in rail research and innovation (link 1)(link 2).

Dr. Maria Molodova, topic: Axle box acceleration modelling and validation. Postdoc, January 2013 - December 2015, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Dr. Zili Li. Daily Supervisor: Alfredo Núñez. Last known position: Director OkazoLab Ltd. Maria won the Dutch Institute World Class Maintenance Innovation Research Award for her PhD thesis (link). Maria also won the best student paper awards at the 16th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (link 1)(link 2).

Wassamon Phusakulkajorn, topic: Condition-based maintenance of railway systems using artificial intelligence. PhD researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Zili Li. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: PhD researcher, since October 2020.

Siwarak Unsiwilai, topic: Railway track support condition assessment - from onboard measurements to maintenance decision support. PhD researcher, September 2018 to June 2024, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Promotor: Prof. Zili Li. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez.

Taniya Kapoor, topic: Physics informed machine learning for railway infrastructure. PhD researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Hongrui Wang. Promotors: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet and Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: PhD researcher, since November 2021.

Yuanchen Zeng, topic: Monitoring dynamic properties of railway tracks using train-borne vibrometer measurement (TUDelft repository). PhD thesis, Section of Railway Engineering, Department of Engineering Structures, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Promotor: Prof. Zili Li. Co-promotor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. PhD Defense: 4th December 2023. Last known position: Postdoc researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Department of Engineering Structures, Delft University of Technology.

Marko Kapetanovic, topic: Improving sustainability of regional railway services (TUDelft repository). PhD thesis, Department of Transport and Planning, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Promotors: Prof. Rob Goverde and Dr. Niels van Oort. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. PhD Defense: 28th June 2023. Last known position: Postdoc researcher, Department of Transport and Planning, Delft University of Technology. In Dec. 2021, the paper entitled "Analysis of hydrogen-powered propulsion system alternatives for diesel-electric multiple unit regional trains" was selected in the group of best papers at the 9th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis (RailBeijing 2021).In May 2023, the paper entitled "Vehicle-to-Grid Concept for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Hybrid-Electric Regional Trains" was selected in the group of best papers at the 10th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis (RailBelgrade 2023).

Pan Zhang, topic: Mechanisms and mitigation of short pitch rail corrugation (.pdf) (TUDelft repository). PhD thesis, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Promotor and daily supervisor: Prof. Zili Li. Co-promotor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. Current position: Postdoctoral researcher, since September 2021. PhD Defense: 7th December 2022. Last known position: Postdoc researcher at TUDelft, since September 2021.

Jianfeng Fu, topic: Failure prevention and restoration in power systems (.pdf) (TUDelft repository). PhD thesis, Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Promotor: Prof. Bart De Schutter. Co-promotor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. PhD Defense: 20 September 2022. Last known position: Assistant Professor at Dalian Maritime University, China.

Dr. Hongrui Wang, topic: Data-based Dynamic Condition Assesment of Railway Catenaries (.pdf) (TUDelft repository). PhD thesis, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet. Daily Supervisor: Dr. Alfredo Núñez. PhD Defense: 4th of December 2019. Last known position: Assistant Professor at TUDelft, The Netherlands. In Dec. 2021, Hongrui Wang received the PhD thesis award from the European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC) and Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking. As of July/August 2020, the journal paper "Junwen Chen, Zhigang Liu, Hongrui Wang, Alfredo Núñez, and Zhiwei Han, Automatic defect detection of fasteners on the catenary support device using deep convolutional neural network, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 67(2):257-269, 2018" is in the highly cited list, the top 1% of the field Engineering, Data from Essential Science Indicators (ISI-Web of Science).

Dr. Ali Jamshidi, topic: Intelligent rail maintenance decision support system using KPIs (.pdf) (TUDelft repository). PhD thesis, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Rolf Dollevoet and Dr. Zili Li. Daily Supervisor: Alfredo Núñez. Last known position: Lead Development Engineer at Willow. PhD Defense: 3th of September 2019.

Dr. Luis Marin, topic: Hierarchical energy management system based on fuzzy prediction intervals for operation and coordination of microgrids (.pdf) (UChile repository). PhD thesis, Electrical Engineering Department, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile. Supervisor: Prof. Doris Saez Hueichapan. Co-supervisors: Prof. Mark Sumner and Alfredo Núñez. PhD Defense: December 2018. Last known position: Professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá – Colombia.

Yuan Lei, topic: Physics informed neural networks for engineering structures. PhD researcher, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Supervisor: Prof. Yi-Qing Ni. Visit period: June 2023 to December 2023.

Dr. Junping Zhong, topic: Fault Diagnosis for the Catenary Components in High-speed Railway based on Computer Vision. PhD researcher, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China. Supervisor: Prof. Zhigang Liu. Visit period: October 2019 to October 2020.

Dr. Wenqiang Liu, topic: Fault Detection and Diagnosis Theory of Electrified Railway Catenary and Track. PhD researcher, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China. Supervisor: Prof. Zhigang Liu. Visit period: September 2017 to February 2019.

Karim El Laham, "A big data methodology for tamping decisions using sensors from the sky, railway track, and substructure." PDEng researcher, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Chair: Prof. Zili Li. Supervisors: Dr. Valeri Markine, Dr. Alfredo Núñez and Dr. Neda Sepasian (Fugro). Thesis committee: Prof. Zoran Kapelan, Ellard Groenewegen, Ilse Oonk. PDEng defended: 28th September 2023. Karim received the PWI Young Achiever's Award that recognises the achievements of our young people working in the rail industry (The PWI - The Institution for Rail Infrastructure Engineering).

Paul Le Lan, "RSD-TDS: Rail Surface Defect Treatment Decision Support". Professional Doctorate, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Chair: Prof. Zili Li. Supervisors: Alfredo Núñez and Maarten van Riel. Advisor: Zhen Yang. Thesis committee: Prof. Pieter van Gelder, Ellard Groenewegen, Ilse Oonk. PDeng defended: 21st February 2020.

Jose Stradi. Thesis: A digital twin approach for cross-border maintenance operations. MSc student, Department of Transportation and Planning, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Rolf Dollevoet (Chair) and Alfredo Núñez (daily supervisor). Committee: Mahnam Saeednia, Arjen Zoeteman (ProRail), and Tim Vernaillen (Infrabel).

Wessel Roodenburg, Thesis: Rail infrastructure quality monitoring through smartphone accelerometer measurements. MSc student, Department of Transportation and Planning, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Zili Li (Chair) and Alfredo Núñez (daily supervisor). Committee: Anupam Kumar, Yuanchen Zeng, Jurjen Hendriks, Arjen Zoeteman (ProRail).

Siew Chee Wong, topic: Resiliency of Railway Organizations. MSc thesis, Department of Transportation and Planning, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Niels van Oort (Chair), Alfredo Núñez, Hongrui Wang (Daily Supervisor). Defense: 13th November 2023. (TUDelft Repository)

Brian Kwee, topic: A heuristic method for the distribution of freight wagons on a rail yard taking into account dangerous goods. MSc thesis, Master track Transport & Planning, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Committee chair: Prof. Rob Goverde. Daily supervisors: Dr. Alfredo Núñez and Bogdan Godziejewski (Mott MacDonald). Defense: May 2022. (TUDelft Repository)

Noa Peteroff, topic: Rail wear in curves at the tramway of Amsterdam. MSc thesis, Section of Railway Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Zili Li (chair), Dr. Alfredo Núñez, and Janneke Tax (GVB-Amsterdam). Committe members: Dr. Yuguang Yang and Michel Huijsmans (GVB-Amsterdam). Defense: December 2021. (TUDelft Repository)

Arif Nurhidayat, topic: Deep learning for monitoring the health condition of railway crossings. MSc thesis, Embedded Systems, specialization Control Systems, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Bart De Schutter. Daily supervisors: Alfredo Núñez and Anthonie Boogaard (Railway Engineering). Defense: 24 January 2018. (TUDelft Repository)

Muhammad Faris, topic: Distributed optimization for railway track maintenance operations planning. MSc thesis, Systems and Control Master Program, Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Bart De Schutter. Daily supervisors: Alfredo Núñez, Zhou Su, Ali Jamshidi. Defense: 18 January 2018. Publication: [C66]. (TUDelft Repository)

Suzan van Ginkel, topic: Multi-oobjective project portfolio optimization, application in railway infrastructure networks. MSc thesis, Systems and Control Master Program, Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Bart De Schutter. Daily supervisors: Alfredo Núñez and Daphne de Poot. In cooperation with ORTEC. Defense: 27 November 2017. (TUDelft Repository)

Wei Xie, topic: Decision support for the maintenance regarding tram wheel-rail interface based on multisource data analysis. MSc thesis, Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics Master Program, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Dr. Zili Li. Daily supervisors: Alfredo Núñez and Ron Maas (Sensornet). In cooperation with Sensornet. Defense: 19 October 2017.

Franka Veltman, topic: Hybrid human in the loop model predictive control for polder management, case study Ommoord. MSc thesis, Systems and Control Master Program, Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisor: Prof. Bart De Schutter. Daily supervisor: Alfredo Núñez. Defense: 24 October 2016. Franka was awarded an ACM-W scholarship for attendance 2015 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence in South Africa (link).

Rick Schalk, topic: Data analytics for RCF damages on the Dutch HSL track. MSc thesis Construction, Management and Engineering Master Program, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. Supervisors: Prof. Rogier Wolfert and Dr. Arjen Zoeteman. Daily Supervisors: Alfredo Núñez and Aad Hertogs (Infraspeed). Defense: 23 September 2016.

Terrence Dahoe, topic: Estimation of railway track parameters using evolutionary algorithms. BSc student, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology. Committee: Dr. Alfredo Núñez (daily supervisor), Dr. Chen Shen, and Prof. Zili Li. Defense: July 2021. (Repository TUDelft)

Dr. Zhiwei Han, topic: Automatic Detection Data Analysis Platform of Electrified Railway Catenary and Track. Visitor scholar: October 2018 to April 2019.

Prof.Dr. Doris Saez Hueichapan, topic: Interval Fuzzy Modelling. Visitor scholar: June 2017, July 2018, July 2019.

Prof.Dr. Nii Attoh-Okine, topic: Big Data for Railway Systems. Visitor scholar: October 2015.