Our Team
Professor Alegría has experience in the fields of marketing, sales, management and innovation, and has held positions of responsibility in consumer goods multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson Wax and Reckitt Benckiser. He has lived and worked in seven countries and some of his key assignments include: Marketing Vice President for Spain, Director of Global Marketing and Innovation based in London, Regional Marketing Director and Distributors’ Sales Manager for Scandinavia, Marketing Manager in Italy.
In Barcelona he founded a small consulting firm where he has carried out work in a wide variety of fields. Because of his strong interest in food, he has consulted with an important South American agro-food conglomerate, producer of fresh, frozen and preserved products. Professor Alegría has also consulted with smaller food businesses in product and hospitality. Since 2015 he has been teaching Study Abroad in Barcelona. He obtained his B.A. in Business Administration at University of Lima and holds an MBA from McGill University.
Professor Armus is an anthropologist and culinary tourism professional. She holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Claremont McKenna College and a Masters degree in Gastronomic Tourism and Culinary Heritage Studies from the Universitat de Barcelona.
Dr. Rosa Lamuela-Raventos is the Director of the Research Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety and Full Professor at the Department of Nutrition, Food Sciences and Gastronomy of the School of Pharmacy and Food Sciences at the University of Barcelona. She was named one of the most influential scientists in the world according to the Highly Cited Researchers list, from 2017-2020.
Dr. Loew (PhD in Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra) is the founder and director of the Food Studies & Gastronomy program. Dr. Loew has been teaching American study abroad students in Barcelona for 15+ years, at many organizations including IES Abroad, CIEE, Accent- UCEAP, and others.
Dr. Torralba, (Ph.D. in Education, UC Berkeley), is a senior investigator at the Open University of Catalonia (Department of Food Systems, Culture and Society) where he leads The Food Profile, a project that seeks to understand the daily eating practices of school-age children and youth in Spain and Denmark through innovative technologies, and use such understanding to design school-based curriculum. He also co-leads a European-wide Erasmus+ project (Learn4Health) aimed at promoting better health among students through a set of evidence- based initiatives.
Marina Díaz Cristóbal studied political science at the University Complutense de Madrid and received her doctorate in history at Tufts University in the United States, where she formed part of a research group organized by the Prince of Asturias Chair in Spanish History. In Boston, she was also a member of the Iberian Study Group at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. She later taught at King’s College London before joining IES abroad. Her doctoral thesis studied turn-of-century modernist thought in Spain and Europe.
Dr. Pubill-Ulldemolins is a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry at the University of Barcelona and Visiting Lecturer of the University of Sussex. She has a worked at laboratories in Germany, the UK, Canada and Japan. She has a strong track-record in securing funding in support of research and has led multiple international and national competitive scientific research projects.
