Innovation Award for Valencian NASA Researcher Belén Franch

Belén Franch Gras (Valencia, 1984), NASA scientist and professor at the University of Maryland and the University of Valencia, will be one of the winners of the Finance Night at Forinvest 2020. The awards will be presented on Monday 2nd March 2020 at Feria Valencia during the most important economic business gala of the year, an essential event that brings together the main personalities from the world of economy, business, insurance and financial sectors.

The prize for innovation will be received by this young Valencian physicist, who focuses her research on climate change and the fight against hunger. From 2013 to 2019 she worked as an Associate Research Professor at the University of Maryland and as a research associate at NASA. Since 2019 she has been working at the Universtitat de Valencia as a distinguished researcher, at the University of Maryland as an Adjunct Associate Professor and is a member of the Group on Earth Observations Global Agriculture Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative, which includes the main international researchers coordinating the different works in agricultural monitoring. Currently, she is a principal investigator on several NASA projects.

In 2018, Franch was awarded the Early career achivement medal of honour by NASA for her outstanding contribution in the field of remote sensing and her contribution to a better understanding of the Earth system and its agricultural resources. That same year, she obtained the highest score in the senior category of the Generalitat Valenciana’s Generació Talent program for the recovery of research personnel with a doctorate of excellence for the development of R+D+i projects in Valencia. In 2019, NASA once again awarded her as a member of the Land Long Term Data Record Team for her exceptional work in producing, validating and distributing the longest global satellite database to date.

On March 3rd and 4th, for two days, Valencia will become the country’s financial capital, where the leading exponents of the business and financial world will reflect on current affairs in the sector.