Previously, he completed his PhD in 2008 on metaheuristics (and particularly on scatter search) for complex process optimization, under the supervision of Prof. Julio R. Banga (CSIC, Spain) and Prof. Rafael Martí (University of Valencia, Spain). During his PhD and afterwards, he has done several research stays in different recognized institutions like Mälardarlens University (Sweden), SUPÉLEC (France), KU Leuven (Belgium), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and European Bioinformatics Institute (UK).