Eloi Prat Padró
Physics undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara. RISE Fellow.
I study physics at UC Santa Barbara and build things for people who need them: a communication device for a woman with ALS who can no longer speak, air quality sensors for the schools in my polluted hometown, and a newspaper in Marathi written by students from the villages around my old school. I like physics and building for the same reason: I want to understand what's around me well enough to work with it and make it better.
Now
- Second year of a B.S. in Physics at UCSB, leaning toward biophysics and the physics of soft and living matter.
- Undergraduate researcher in Omar Saleh's lab at UCSB since October 2026.
- Fresh off a summer in the Small Biosystems Lab at the Universitat de Barcelona, working with optical and magnetic tweezers, and a talk on it at KITP.
- Always building something, whether it's an app, a 3D print or the next idea.
Research
I'm an undergraduate researcher in Omar Saleh's lab at UCSB. I spent the summer of 2026 in the Small Biosystems Lab at the Universitat de Barcelona, pulling on single molecules with optical and magnetic tweezers, and gave a talk on it at KITP in September. Before that I wrote three IB research papers: on Cepheid variables, on how printed PLA breaks, and on the light curve of a solar transit.
- 2024–25Three IB research papers at MUWCI
- Summer 2026Ritort lab, Barcelona
- Sept 2026Talk at KITP
- Oct 2026Saleh lab, UCSB
Selected work
All projects →ALS communication device
2020 and 2026
A communication app for Mercè, who has ALS and cannot speak or type.
Air quality sensor network
2019-2022 and 2026
Around thirty PM2.5 sensors built and given to schools across Granollers, so students could see the pollution numbers where they actually live.
Nisha digital newspaper
2023 — 2025
A digital newspaper written in Marathi by students from the villages around my school, about whatever they wanted to write about.