José Balsa-Barreiro is a research scientist in CITIES (Division of Engineering) at the New York Abu Dhabi University (UAE), and the groups of Connection Science and Human Dynamics at the MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). He had been visiting researcher at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (USA) and Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Germany). His research interests are dangerously widespread including human dynamics, mobility, geography, and mapping. His work has been featured in Harvard International Review, El País, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, and Le Monde Diplomatique. 

He had received his Bsc. Geography from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), Geomatics Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, both from the Technical University of Valencia (Spain). He holds a Ph.D degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Coruna (Spain) and the Politecnico di Torino (Italy). He had worked in Spain, Germany (Institute for Photogrammetry and Max Planck Institute for Human Development), Switzerland (Institute for Transport Planning and Systems), and the United States (MIT Media Lab and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory).