León, Gto., December 8, 2016.- Research in computing simulation is one of the research lines where Dr. Alejandro Gil-Villegas Montiel works, a scholar at the University of Guanajuato (UG) who has been granted the prize of the 8th Meeting of Molecular Simulation, in an annual congress that gathers academics from around the globe, organized by the Universidad Autónoma de México (UAM) Iztapalapa since 2008.

The event's committee decided to give the award to Prof. Gil-Villegas for his academic trajectory and his contribution in the field of molecular theory and simulation.

Molecular simulation is a scientific tool that, based on statistic principles and using information of the chemical and physical properties of a substance, it is capable to predict the effects of experiments and other events, without the need to make them in a practical way.

This has a great utility, since it produces reliable results while reduces costs and even risks, depending on the type of experiment. Dr. Alejandro commented that his work consists in finding thermodynamic models that describe substances and later can be used in different applications.

One of these applications is of great interest for the oil business, and that is the study of Asphaltenes –high density substances—that are raw and cause problems such as blocking pipes and slowing necessary chemical reactions to process petroleum.

His experience in this area has taken Dr. Gil-Villegas to research in collaboration with the Mexican Institute of Petroleum, however, this is not his sole line of research, he also collaborates with Colombian colleagues in the production of biofuels and with Manchester University in development and quantum corrections of state equations.

About the university community, he said that "We are a division with many needs of space, infrastructure, etcetera, but even with all these limitations, we are a successful division in forming people and in great part is because of this multidisciplinary spirit you have to promote."

Dr. Alejandro Gil-Villegas has been part of the University of Guanajuato for over 20 years, it was in 1998 when he accepted to come and work in the then Institute of Physics of the University of Guanajuato (IFUG), even when he had the opportunity to accept a position as a researcher in England, country where he lived for five years collaborating in several projects.

Likewise, Dr. Gil-Villegas expressed that in a personal level, this award allows him to look back and see in retrospective all his years as a professional physicist and former of students.

He also highlighted that these awards are a motivation and a sample that research done at the University of Guanajuato provides useful knowledge with a perspective of development towards the future.