A Historic Month for i3 lab: Celebrating Two Outstanding PhD Defenses in September 2026!

September 2026 will forever be etched in the history of i3 lab as a month of unprecedented scientific achievement and joy! Our research group is thrilled to celebrate the successful PhD thesis defenses of two outstanding colleagues, Dr. Juan Diego Gutiérrez Gallardo and Dr. Francisco Javier Melchor González, both of whom achieved the maximum academic grade of Sobresaliente Cum Laude.

Double Academic Triumph in Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence

This double success highlights the exceptional quality and impact of the research conducted within our lab across cutting-edge domains:

• Dr. Dr. Juan Diego Gutiérrez Gallardo (Andy): Successfully defended his second doctoral thesis, introducing the PROBE (Prompt Optimization for Boundary Exploration) framework. Grounded in MDSE, Andy’s work provides a systematic methodology to optimize prompts and explore performance boundaries in foundation models without requiring costly retraining. For full details on his milestone defense, check out Andy’s PhD defense announcement
• Dr. Francisco Javier Melchor González (Fran): Culminated a five-year scientific journey bridging Software Engineering and Data Science. His research proposes an MDSE framework that brings formal verification, reproducibility, and traceability to DS and AI data pipelines through metamodeling and a specialized DSL. Read the complete story in Fran’s PhD defense announcement.

Both doctoral dissertations were supervised with great dedication and expertise by Dr. Roberto Rodríguez Echeverría and Dr. José María Conejero Manzano, whose guidance has been fundamental to these triumphs. We congratulate Andy and Fran from the bottom of our hearts for their brilliance, perseverance, and daily generosity.

Interested in our research lines, want to learn more about our ongoing projects, or thinking about collaborating with us? Get in touch with our team!