Story

I am always grateful to God, my wife Loren Osorio, my parents Edilberto Castillo and Blanca Taborda, and all the friends and family who have been part of my journey.

When I Learned to Crawl in the World of Science:
I graduated in Physics from the Universidad de Antioquia, one of the top three universities in Colombia. It has a very strong physics program, where I built a solid foundation in mathematics and programming.
I still remember my undergraduate colleagues with great appreciation, especially Jeferson Colorado and Johan Vargas, who are both now working in the data science world. And of course, Carlos Toro, a physicist/pure mathematician in the academic world, and still now the most humble and smartest guy I have ever met in my life.

My first steps in Geoscience World:

Everything changed when I took a Geophysics elective with Professor Gloria Moncayo. That course strongly motivated me to become a geophysicist.
During my last semester as a physics student, I decided to move to Bogotá and do an academic exchange at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL), which has the strongest geophysics program in the country. There, I worked with Professor Carlos Vargas. He and the UNAL research team welcomed and trained me in an incredible way: Juan Manuel Solano, Nicolas Pinzon, Carla Lagardere, and Sebastian Gomez Alba. All of them are currently working in different areas of Geoscience.
I also met Adolfo, Sandra, Lindsay, and many other wonderful people who made my life in Bogotá happier, both personally and professionally.

My First Steps as a Seismologist:

My experience with the UNAL research team provided incredible training, especially working with software such as SEISAN and SeisComP. Thanks to that preparation, I gained the skills necessary to be accepted as a Seismic Analyst at the Colombian National Seismic Network.
For me, it was one of the best places to begin a career in seismology. I processed thousands of earthquake signals triggered by crustal faults, subduction zones, volcanoes, and even human-induced seismicity.
Although it was a professional work environment, there was still room for research. My perspective expanded tremendously, and I still maintain connections with many of my colleagues — as friends, research collaborators, and even current coworkers. The geoscience world is small.

When I started, I had the opportunity to work with: Daniel Martinez, Oscar Suarez, Adolfo Robayo, Leonardo Mateus, Angel Agudelo, Daniel Siervo, Esteban Poveda, Edwin Mayorga, In my later stage, I also worked with: Emmanuel Guzman, Laura Mercado, Geronimo Valencia, Mariana Vergara, Sebastian Gomez, Juan Soriano.

I could mention many more names, but my main purpose is to express my immense gratitude to all of them.

Deepening My Path in Seismology: My Master’s in Geophysics

During my first professional experience as a seismic analyst, I realized I needed to strengthen my research capacity. At the same time, the unexpected and quiet period of COVID-19 — together with this crazy (and brilliant) guy Daniel Siervo — pushed me into the world of Artificial Intelligence.
I began taking several AI courses on Coursera, including the Deep Learning Specialization, TensorFlow, and others. That period completely reshaped the way I approached problems, allowing me to connect seismology with machine learning.
With a clear goal of doing research at the intersection of seismology and AI, many colleagues recommended that I reach out to German Prieto to be my advisor during my Master’s program in Geophysics. That decision was transformative.
Together with Prof. German and Daniel Siervo, we developed the first automatic earthquake catalog in Colombia using AI, which later became my first publication in Seismological Research Letters (SRL).
I am deeply grateful to Prof. German for his constant support, brilliant ideas, and guidance — not only academically, but also in helping me navigate professional decisions.
During this time, I also met Sofia Cubillos, a great friend and colleague. I am certain our paths will continue to cross in the scientific world.

Welcome to the Energy Industry

…