As part of the eleventh edition of the DonaTIC Awards , organized by the Secretariat of Digital Policies of the Department of Business and Employment of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Alba Cervera Lierta has been awarded the DonaTIC 2025 Award in the 'Revelation' category. The DonaTIC 2025 Awards are part of the DonaTIC Plan of the Generalitat de Catalunya and are benchmark awards to highlight and recognize the role and talent of women and increase the representativeness of the group within digital technologies, as well as offer new contemporary female role models and promote vocations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. From the Xarxa Punt TIC, we talk to Alba Cervera Lierta about the recognition.
1. What did receiving the DonaTIC 2025 Award mean to you?
I had heard about the DonaTIC Awards. In fact, I applied when I was still doing my doctorate. I think it's a very interesting initiative to give visibility to women who work in technology and science. Personally, I'm very happy to have received this recognition for my career.
2. What has been your professional career?
I studied physics at the University of Barcelona and then did a master's degree at the same university in particle physics. When I started my PhD at the University of Barcelona, I discovered the field of quantum information, which at that time was not as mainstream as it is now, and I specialized in quantum computing. In 2019, when I finished my PhD, I went to the University of Toronto to do a postdoctoral stay for two years and then returned to Barcelona to work at the BSC around quantum computing and its algorithms and the coordination of the BSC's 'Quantum Space' project.
3. What are your future challenges?
The role models I have had, and who have led me to work in this field of quantum computing, have been mainly men. Sadly, I have lacked female role models. I believe that a future challenge, mine and that of society as a whole, is to foster these role models, examples and mirrors for the following generations.
4. Why is it important to promote STEM vocations among girls and women?
I think it is very important to give visibility to women who work in technology and science and above all to show that we are normal people, everyday people, so that any girl who sees us can identify with us and understand that if she is also interested in these topics, she can dedicate herself to them. First of all, I would tell them to choose a career according to what they like and without thinking about whether it will have more or less applications, because in the end, no one has seen the science of the future and the technology of the future and they may be studying a field that later in the future will have very relevant applications for our society. Second, I would tell them not to put up barriers for themselves, that if they really like a field, even if they think it is very complicated, they should throw themselves into it. Technological improvements are those that work with passion.