Professor Ernesto Hernández Zapata studied Physics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), graduating in 1995. He holds a Master's degree in Science (Physics, UNAM, 1997) and a Ph.D. in Science (Physics, UNAM, 2002). Ph.D. thesis was carried out during a research stay at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), under the supervision of Professor Philip Alan Pincus, and was entitled "A Theoretical Study on Polyelectrolyte Brushes".

Since 2011, he has been a tenured Professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) Lerma Campus.

His research has been focused on theory and simulations of problems related to soft condensed matter physics (polymeric and polyelectrolyte solutions, vesicles, and lipid membranes, electrolytes, thermodynamic properties of isolated macromolecules, colloidal systems, etc.), biomechanics of membranes, as well as statistical physics problems of complex systems (such as vehicular and pedestrian traffic models).

He has supervised two master's theses and two bachelor's theses and has published several articles in indexed journals of international prestige, with more than 135 citations. He was the founding head of the Department of Land Resources at the Lerma Campus of UAM. He is a member of the National System of Researchers, Level I.