Despite the state of alarm, and respecting all security measures, Chuan Cao was able to defend his doctoral thesis on the scheduled date, last Friday, May 29th. As a consequence of the impossibility of the external tribunal members to travel to San Sebastian, the defense of his doctoral thesis was carried out with part of the tribunal connected on-line live to the Tecnun Degrees classroom where the defense took place.

"It was an extraordinary experience to finish my doctorate in such a special period," Chuan himself emphasizes. "When the epidemic was at its worst, I saw that people did not panic because of the spread of the virus and we all continued to work orderly from home," recalls the now doctoral student in engineering.

"However, in order to arrive on time on the day my thesis defense was scheduled, the staff and committee members worked in person and made many preparations so that everything would go smoothly. And I am very grateful for this," says an excited Chuan, who adds: "It is not an easy task to have video calls with members from three different regions at the same time. That's why I feel that everyone's response has been extraordinary. The epidemic status may temporarily separate us from each other, but academic research has transcended boundaries and united us", concludes the engineer.

Chuan Cao came to Tecnun in 2016 with a China Scholarship Council (CSC Scholarship) scholarship from the Chinese government to develop his doctorate at Tecnun. Since then, he has developed his thesis entitled "DEVELOPMENT OF A LOW-COST WEARABLE PREVENTION SYSTEM FOR MSDS USING IMU SYSTEMS AND ELECTRICALLY CONDUCTIVE MATERIALS VIA ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING", under the guidance of professors Aitor Cazón and Mabel Rodríguez, in the Industrial design area of the Mechanicsdepartment of Tecnun.

As a result of his work Chuan has presented a paper at the International Joint Conference on Mechanics, Design Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing (JMC 2018), published a chapter in the graduate book "Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Advances on Mechanics Design and Manufacturing II" from the publishing house Springer and has published a research article in the "Rapid Prototyping Journal".

The members of the tribunal of his thesis were: Alejo Avello, principal researcher at the Materials and Manufacturing Division of Ceit; Sergio Ausejo, senior researcher at CEIT and Adjunct Professor of Biomechanics at Tecnun; Richard Bibb, Professor of Medical Applications of Design at Loughborough University (UK); Joaquín Luis Sancho, Full Professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering and Construction at the Universitat Jaume I; and Christopher McComb, Assistant Professor of Engineering Design at Penn State University (USA).