My research interests are mainly focused on the study and characterization of the highmass star formation process. High-mass stars — with masses ≥ 8 M corresponding to O and B spectral types — play a major role in shaping the morphological, dynamical and chemical structure of their host galaxies, through supersonic strong winds, strong ultraviolet radiation that can ionize the surrounding gas, and finally through supernova explosions. Moreover, when observing far galaxies, most of the stars that we are able to study with current instrumentation are high-mass stars and the properties that we infer for distant galaxies are the result of the effects of these stars. Thus, it is clear that high-mass stars are key to understand many physical phenomena in our own Galaxy and in other galaxies. However, their first stages of evolution are still poorly understood and one of the major topics of current astronomical research. Differently to the low-mass star formation case, high-mass stars reach the main sequence while still undergoing accretion, thus inhibiting growth of the stellar mass beyond 8 M. Recent theories, however, propose that high accretion rates and/or accretion through massive disks could overcome this problem, and explain the formation of stars with masses up to 140 M. During my scientific research activity, I have worked in the characterization of an evolutionary scheme for the high-mass star formation process: which starts with dense cores and ends with the development of Hii regions that disrupt the natal cloud.