Manuel Laínz Valcázar

I am a faculty member (profesor contratado) at CUNEF Universidad in Madrid and a member of the Geometry and Mathematical Physics research team. I studied Mathematics and Physics at the Universidad de Cantabria — receiving the Extraordinary Award for the best academic record in Mathematics — including a year at Princeton University. I completed a master’s in Mathematics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and my PhD at the ICMAT (CSIC), supervised by Prof. Manuel de León, on contact Hamiltonian systems and their application to modelling irreversible dynamics.

My research lies in differential geometry and its applications to physics. I develop geometric tools for the study and control of thermodynamic and mechanical systems with dissipation, with contributions to the theory of contact Hamiltonian systems, Hamilton–Jacobi theory, the Herglotz variational principles, dissipative field theories, nonholonomic systems and optimal control. My article Contact Hamiltonian Systems (J. Math. Phys., 2019) was selected as an Editor’s Pick and is my most-cited work.

Since joining CUNEF in 2023, my work focuses on several generalizations of integrability — the Arnold–Liouville theorem for contact systems and, through multisymplectic geometry, for partial differential equations. I hold a recognized research sexenio (2019–2024) and ANECA accreditations as Assistant Professor and as Professor at a private university.

See my publications for recent work, or my CV for the full record.