Esteban Sanchis Kilders
Prof. Esteban Sanchis Kilders graduated in Physics from the University of Valencia in 1990 and obtained his PhD in Electronic Engineering in 1997. In 1999, he was appointed Associate Professor, and in 2016 he became Full Professor.
Between 1992 and 1994, he was awarded a Technology Specialist Fellowship by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. During this period, he carried out R&D activities in the Power Conditioning Section of the European Space Agency (ESA) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands. This experience enabled him to conduct research in an international environment highly specialised in space technology.
In the field of university management, he served as Secretary of the School of Engineering (Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria, ETSE-UV) at the University of Valencia from 2003 to 2005 and as Deputy Director from 2005 to 2012. Since 2019, he has also served as the University of Valencia’s Delegate for the FORTHEM Alliance. In this role, he has promoted the establishment and development of the University of Valencia’s participation in this European Universities alliance, contributing to its consolidation within the institution’s internationalisation strategy.
His research activity has focused primarily on the space sector, with particular emphasis on the design and development of electronic power systems for scientific instrumentation. In this field, he has led research projects on power systems for space instruments and participated in several competitive research projects of the European Space Agency. These activities have been carried out within national and international research consortia, including the Spanish Aerospace Solar Physics Network (Red Española de Física Solar Aeroespacial; BOE No. 228, 22 September 2022, p. 130300 ff.).
This research career has led him to serve continuously as Principal Investigator (PI) of projects funded under Spain’s National R&D&I Plan since 2016. One of the most significant outcomes of this activity has been his participation in the PHI (Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager) instrument aboard the Solar Orbiter mission. Since 2020, Solar Orbiter has been orbiting the Sun, and the power supply for the PHI instrument, whose development was the responsibility of the team he leads, has operated successfully and without failure since becoming operational. This achievement represents a particularly significant example of the application of his group’s research and technological development to an international space mission.
In parallel, within the research group he has contributed to the power devices research line, which focuses, among other areas, on the characterisation of electronic devices for space applications. He has also participated in the industrial applications research line, specialising in the development of high-power inverters, primarily for induction heating applications. In this field, the incorporation of silicon carbide (SiC) devices has enabled improved performance and further advances in the development of higher-efficiency power converters.
These research activities have also been complemented by projects carried out in collaboration with industry, integrating scientific and technological research with knowledge and technology transfer to the industrial sector.