Dr. Jairo Méndez Abreu is a Viera y Clavijo Senior Researcher at the University of La Laguna (ULL). He was born in San Juan de la Rambla, Tenerife (Spain), and studied Physics at the University of La Laguna. In 2008 he obtained a PhD in Astrophysics in co-tutelle between the University of La Laguna (Spain) and the University of Padua (Italy). After his time in Italy he returned to the Canary Islands with a postdoctoral contract at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and a Juan de la Cierva contract. During this period he developed cutting-edge techniques to study galaxy structures that have been applied to the state of the art of current astronomical data. He then moved to Scotland where he carried out research at the University of St Andrews (UK) and returned to the IAC to work on the development of the WEAVE instrument. After a period at the University of Granada, he is currently working at the ULL.

His research career has focused on building a complete picture of the growth and evolution of galaxies. He is an expert in observational studies of the different stellar structures that shape galaxies, in particular bulges, bars and discs. He has developed multiple state-of-the-art techniques for analysing galactic structures that he has applied to a variety of world-leading mappings, discovering new stellar structures in galaxies, and challenging the current view on bulge formation. 

Dr. Méndez Abreu has more than 115 articles in high-impact journals and is a regular contributor to international conferences and prestigious research centres. His expertise in several key aspects of observational astronomy, as well as in the supervision of students, has made him a reference in the field of galaxy evolution. He is currently the principal investigator of the BEARD project and the representative of the IAC's Formation and Evolution of Galaxies research line.