Dr. Riccardo Rossi, the GECKO coordinator, is a Civil Engineer from the University of Padova (2001). He obtained his PhD at the University of Bologna in 2005. He is currently a Full Professor at the UPC, BarcelonaTech and a Full Research Professor at CIMNE, where he works as affiliates scientist since 2005.

During his career he collaborated actively both in the field of Computational FluidDynamics (CFD) and in Computational Structural Mechanics (CSD). He is one of the main developers of the general-purpose code “Kratos”. To date he published >70 indexed papers, 6 book chapters as well as 6 Monographes. He co-tutored 14 PhD students and more than 30 master-level theses. To date he has an h-factor of 22 (Scopus) or 28 (Google Scholar).

He acted as Principal Investigator (PI) in the National Projects XPRES and EDAMS, and as co-PI in the project PARFLOW.

He was responsible for CFD in the EU-funded projects “uLites” and “NUMEXAS”, and lead the development of the CFD solver which is now at the basis of the commercial solver “Click2Cast” owned by the company Altair.

As of today he is PI and coordinator of the EU projects “ExaQUte” and “EdgeTwins” and PI of the ICCSE-Team project “Atmopace”. He is currently team leader in the projects eFlows4HPC and NextSim.

Rubén (Ph.D. in Civil Engineering) is tenure-track lecturer at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and an Assistant Research Professor at the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE).

His main research lines concern the development of high performance numerical methods for multiphysics problems, with special focus on Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI), as well as the design of alternative unfitted mesh discretization techniques.

Lucia Barbu (PhD in Continuum Mechanics) is an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) and an Assistant Research Professor at the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) where she is leading a research unit. Her lines of research are focused on constitutive modelling, composites, fatigue and prestressed structures.
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Alejandro (PhD in civil engineering) is an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) and an Assistant Research Professor at CIMNE. His lines of research are focused in non-linear solid mechanics, composites, particle methods like the DEM and PFEM, coupled methodologies in Fluid-Structure interaction and Thermomechanical problems and contact mechanics.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Roland Wüchner is a Civil Engineer with a Diploma from the Technical University of Munich (2000). He obtained his PhD at the Technical University of Munich in 2006 with the grade “summa cum laude” on the topic “Computational mechanics of formfinding and fluid-structure interaction of membrane structures”. Then he worked as a lecturer and scientist and received a permanent position at TUM in 2009, where he also received the Habilitation for the field ”Statics and Dynamics“ in 2017. He is currently a Full Professor and Head of Institute of Structural Analysis at TU Braunschweig.

His research activities are mainly in the fields of advanced computational methods for analysis, optimization and design of structures with complex geometries, including the isogeometric analysis (IGA), and the modelling and simulation of coupled systems with special focus on fluid-structure interaction and Computational Wind Engineering (CWE) as one application field. Recent works in collaboration with research partners and industry contribute to the creation and simulation of Digital Twins of Structures which are subject to various complex loading scenarios.

He is member of VDI (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure), GAMM (Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik), GACM/IACM (German/International Association of Computational Mechanics), WtG (Windtechnologische Gesellschaft) and since 2009 he is member of various scientific as well as technical advisory panels and scientific committees e.g. for international conferences (Coupled Problems, Structural Membranes, WCCM, etc.). His special involvements include being a member of “WtG Technical Committee for Numerical Methods” (WtG: Windtechnologische Gesellschaft), Visiting Research Professor at the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), Barcelona, Spain since 2021 and Affiliate Professor at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA since 2023. As a selection of awards, he received the Doce et Delecta Award for excellent teaching several times, the WES 2012 award: Best Paper at the 10th UK Wind Engineering Society conference in Southampton, 2012, and the prestigious Tsuboi Award of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS), 2012.

Current academic positions:

• Since 2019: Rector’s Delegate for International Research and Ranking (UniPV)
• Since 2018: Dean of the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture (UniPV)
• Since 2016: Full Professor of Solid and Structural Mechanics (UniPV)

Studies:

• 2005: PhD in Earthquake Engineering (UniPV and IUSS Pavia)
• 2004: MSc in Earthquake Enigneering (UniPV and IUSS Pavia)
• 2001: MSc (5-year degree) in Civil Engineering (UniPV, grade: 110/110 magna cum laude)

Awards and honors (selected):

• 2020: Euler Medal (European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences)
• 2019: TUM Ambassador (President of the Technical University of Munich)
• 2014-2018: ISI Highly Cited Researcher (5 times, Thomson-Reuters/Clarivate)
• 2018: Bruno Finzi Prize (Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere)
• 2017: Knight Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (President of the Italian Republic)
• 2016: IACM Fellows Award (International Association for Computational Mechanics)
• 2015: Hans Fischer Fellowship (Institute for Advanced Study – TUM)
• 2014: John Argyris Award for Young Scientists (International Association for Computational Mechanics)
• 2013: AIMETA Junior Prize for Solid and Structural Mechanics (Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics)
• 2012: O.C. Zienkiewicz Award (European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences)
• 2004-2012: J.T. Oden Faculty Fellowship (8 times, Oden Institute, UT Austin)
• 2010: ERC “Ideas” Starting Independent Researcher Grant (European Research Council)

Main Research Interests: Isogeometric Methods, Finite Element Methods, Solid and Structural Mechanics, Fluid-Structure Interaction, Biomechanics, Constitutive Modeling, Immersed Methods, Phase-Field Modeling

Sangalli’s research interests are in the field of numerical methods for partial differential equations. He has worked on multiscale numerical methods, domain decomposition methods, stabilized finite element methods, and, more recently, on isogeometric analysis (error analysis and well-posedness of the method, desing of unstructured isogeometric spaces, construction of isogeometric differential forms, quadrature and efficient solvers).

Prof. Giannelli’s research interests are in the field of computer aided geometric design, geometric modeling and processing, including related application areas. She has worked on spline interpolation methods, adaptive spline constructions, scattered data approximation, and, isogeometric analysis (mathematical foundations of adaptive isogeometric analysis, a posteriori error analysis and optimality, and related extensions to adaptive unstructured isogeometric spaces).

Academic degrees

• 21st April 2010: Ph.D. Computer Science and Applications at the University of Florence.
• 7th July 2006: Laurea (cum laude) in Computer Science at the University of Florence.

Past and present positions

• since 2018: Associate Professor in Numerical Analysis at the Univ. of Florence, Italy.
• 2015–2018: Tenure-track Assistant Professor of Numerical Analysis, Univ. of Florence, Italy.
• 2014-2015: Senior Researcher at Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica (INdAM), Italy.
• 2014: Post-doctoral fellow at Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica (INdAM), Italy.
• 2013-2014: Post-doctoral fellow at CNR-IMATI “E. Magenes”, Pavia, Italy.
• 2013: Marie Curie Experienced Researcher at MTU Aero Engines AG, Munich, Germany.
• 2011-2013: Marie Curie Experienced Researcher at Johannes Kepler Univ. Linz, Austria.

Elke Deckers received her MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering from KU Leuven in June 2008. During her PhD studies at the same university, she developed an alternative prediction method for mid-frequency vibro-acoustic analysis including poro-elastic materials. She received her PhD in December 2012 with a thesis entitled “A wave based approach for steady-state Biot models of poroelastic materials”. Holding a postdoctoral research grant of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), she extended her research field to the numerical and analytical modelling of complex lightweight material systems, including viscous materials, metamaterials and meta-porous systems, and the development of supporting fast numerical prediction techniques. She did a research stay at Cambridge University and a short research stay at LAUM. She was appointed Assistant Professor at KU Leuven Campus Diepenbeek in 2019, where she is currently broadening her domain of expertise to include also the production of lightweight material systems by polymer processing techniques like injection moulding and thermoforming.

Dr. Dionysios Panagiotopoulos is a Civil Engineer from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2013) and he specialized in Computational Mechanics in the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in 2017. He joined PBNv2 network being the KU Leuven Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher to investigate the full frequency range noise prediction in the Pass-by Noise context. He obtained his PhD on Mechanical Engineering from the Mecha(tro)nics System Dynamics (LMSD) group in KU Leuven in 2022, where he is currently, a postdoctoral researcher.

His research is focused on computational vibro-acoustics, model order reduction strategies and efficient iterative solvers. Currently, he is tutoring 3 PhD students and he is involved in 4 European (co-coordinating 1) and 1 national project.

Prof. Dr. Eng. Athanassios Mihailidis is a Mechanical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) since 1978. He obtained his PhD at AUTH in 1984 where he is currently an Emeritus Professor.

His research activities are mainly in the field of machine elements, gears and power transmission systems, tribology and thermo-elastohydrodynamic lubrication and automotive Engineering.

He is member of the Technical Chamber of Greece, Greek Association of Mechanical Engineers, Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, Society of Automotive Engineers, Founding Member of the Balkan Tribological Association and Founding member of the Balkan Association of Power Transmissions.

He is reviewerer of several scientific Journals (Wear, International Journal for Computer-Aided Engineering and Software, Proc Inst of Mech Eng, Part B, Journal of Engineering Manufacture, Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, Int. J. of Automation and Control, Recent Patents in Mechanical Engineering, Int. J. of Powertrains).