Keynote lectures

Biography: Sandra Klinge is a Full Professor and Head of the Chair of Structural and Computational Mechanics at the Department of Transport and Mechanical Systems, TU Berlin. She earned her doctorate and habilitation at Ruhr University Bochum, where she was a DAAD scholarship holder in the international Computational Engineering Master’s program. Before joining TU Berlin in 2021, she served as Junior Professor of Computational Engineering at TU Dortmund, where she established her own research group. Her research focuses on numerical methods for simulating composites particularly multiscale finite element methods for direct and inverse problems, with applications in biomechanics, polymers and metally. She is involved in the development of advanced methods such as statistical homogenization, isogeometric analysis, and machine learning. Professor Klinge has extensive international collaborations and is the author of a monograph on the application of homogenization theory to mineralized tissue. Her work bridges applied mathematics, engineering, and computational science.

Biography: Simon Sedmak is a Senior Research Associate at the Innovation Center of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade, Serbia. He obtained his PhD at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (University of Belgrade) in October, 2019, and has worked on several other doctoral theses, providing help and support to other candidates. His extensive research work involves numerous scientific papers, mainly focusing on experimental and numerical approaches to analysing the structural integrity of welded joints and structures, under both static and dynamic loading conditions. More specifically, his research includes the remaining life assessment of welded structures, such as pressure vessels with crack-like defects using fracture mechanics, risk analysis and fatigue crack growth.In addition, he participated in numerous experiments, including tensile tests, fatigue tests, Charpy tests and the use of Digital Image Correlation during this work. Simon Sedmak also has the International Welding Engineer and International Welding Inspector certificates, and cooperates with the Oil and Gas industry on a regular basis, both as a scientist and an engineer.

Biography: Virginia Infante has an MSc in 1998, a PhD in 2002 and the habilitation in 2020 in Mechanical Engineering from Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal. Since 1995, she has been working in the mechanical behaviour of materials and has been involved in several national and international research projects. Currently Virginia Infante is Full Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of IST. She has special expertise in Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical and Fatigue Design, Structural Materials, Fatigue & Fracture of Materials, Improvement Techniques, Railway Sector, Welded Joints, RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintenance and Safety), Life Cycle Costs. She is President of IDMEC (Institute of Mechanical Engineering) and LAETA (Associated Laboratory of Energy, Transports and Aerospace).

Biography: Plekhov Oleg Anatolyevich is the Director of Perm Federal Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), professor RAS, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. He is a scientist in the field of mechanics of deformable solids. His primary research interests are related to the thermodynamics of plastic deformation and fracture processes in structural materials. Author of over 350 scientific publications (as of 2025: 370 in Russian Science Citation Index, h-index 21), including 179 international publications (Scopus/WoS, h-index 18). He participated in development of Russia's first robotic complex for laser shock peening, enabling advanced studies on laser-matter interaction. His recent work focuses on mechanical behavior modeling of frozen soils, supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

Biography: Simone Murchio is a postdoctoral researcher at La Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), with an affiliation to the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Trento. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials, Mechatronics, and Systems Engineering from the University of Trento in 2023. His doctoral thesis focused on the development of smart, hierarchical, multifunctional materials for biomedical applications with enhanced fatigue resistance and osteointegration. His current research focuses on the design and optimization of fatigue-resistant architected cellular materials, leveraging bio-inspired and machine learning approaches.

Biography: Daniela Scorza received her MSc in 2010 and her PhD in 2015 in Structural Mechanics from the University of Parma, where she is currently affiliated with the Department of Engineering and Architecture. From 2019 to 2022, she served as Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering, University of Naples Parthenope. Her research interests lie in fracture mechanics and the fatigue behaviour of structural materials, with a focus on innovative construction materials such as shot-earths and nano-enhanced pervious concretes. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers in leading international journals. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Group of Fracture (IGF) and serves as Treasurer of TC03 “Fatigue of Engineering Materials and Structures”. She is also Section Editor for Fracture and Structural Integrity, Subject Editor for Progress in Engineering Science, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Materials— all internationally recognized journals in the field of structural mechanics and materials engineering.

Biography: Zhao Liguo is a Professor of Solid Mechanics at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. Prior to this, he was a Professor of Solid Mechanics at Loughborough University of the UK, with more than 25 years of research experience gained at the top universities of the UK, including Cambridge University and Imperial College London. He has been fully committed to world-leading research in the field of Solid Mechanics, focusing on viscoplasticity and crystal plasticity constitutive models, fracture, fatigue, creep, crack initiation and propagation, and residual stress analysis. His research has been continuously funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council of the UK, the Royal Society of the UK, the Royal Academy of Engineering of the UK, and industry. To date, he has published more than 100 high-quality papers in SCI journals, including the leading journals in the field of Solid Mechanics such as Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and International Journal of Plasticity. His research has generated significant impacts to relevant industries, especially the structural integrity assessment of critical gas-turbine blades and discs in aerospace and energy sectors.

Biography: Kazuki Shibanuma is an Associate Professor of Fracture Mechanics and Structural Integrity at The University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering from Kyoto University in 2010. After serving as a JSPS Research Fellow (PD), he joined The University of Tokyo as an Assistant Professor (2010–2013), later becoming a Lecturer (2013–2016), and subsequently assumed his current position in 2017. From 2018 to 2021, he was a Visiting Academic at Imperial College London. His research focuses on the mechanics of fracture, fatigue, and damage in materials and structures, with a particular emphasis on innovation in modelling. He develops multiscale and multiphysics frameworks to bridge governing mechanisms across different length scales and disciplines, thereby enabling deeper insights into fracture phenomena. He also advances numerical methods beyond the conventional finite element method to achieve high-accuracy crack simulations. Verification and validation are central to his work, ensuring predictive reliability through rigorous comparison with analytical solutions and experimental data. His contributions aim to advance structural integrity assessment and predictive modelling for complex engineering applications.

Biography: Elena Fedorova is an Associate Professor at the Siberian Federal University, Department of Applied Mechanics and a Senior Research Fellow at the Federal Research Center for Information and Computational Technologies. Her research is mainly focuses on development and characterization of the protective coatings and interfacial adhesion quantification. She also investigates the combined mechanical and chemical effect on structural integrity of different technical systems and their elements operating under severe environmental conditions. She is author of more than 120 publications, including articles in national and international journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, and patents. In 2005-2020 she has been involved in a range of joint international programs and projects. In 2010-2011 she was a visiting professor at the University of Toulouse (Toulouse INP), France. In 2016 she was a Senior Expert in modelling of multilayer mechanics and oxidation at the Department of Corrosion and Behavior of Materials in their Environment of the CEA Centre of Saclay, France. Nowadays, most of her research is done in close collaboration with aluminium production industry. She is a Scientific Secretary of the Technical Committee ESIS TC12 on Risk analysis and safety of large structures and components.

Biography: Chao Gao is an Associate Professor in the Department of mechanical and industrial engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. His research focuses on understanding the unique architectural design principles—principles that offer great potential to tackle challenges of material design—from nature and developing high-performance bioinspired materials (e.g., sutural tessellated materials, silk-inspired materials) via a hybrid analytical, numerical, and experimental approach. Chao’s team also integrates recent emerging deep learning neural networks with extracted natural design principles to solve complex material design problems. His work has been reported and highlighted by international media, such as Science Update from AAAS, NSF news, and Materials Today. He is the chair of TC19 “Data-driven methods and machine learning applied to structural integrity” of ESIS. His research receives support from Research Council of Norway, Horizon Europe, National Science Foundation of US and industry.

Biography: Full Prof. Dr. Nenad Gubeljak (1963) has extensive experience in fatigue crack propagation and fracture toughness testing of welded joints. His professional activity is focused on study of fracture behaviour of mis-matching weld joints and determination of fracture condition and effect of global and local strength mis-match on fracture toughness of weld joints. He was awarded by European Commission as Marie Curie Fellow, and European project FITNET (GKSS coordinator), HIPERC (British Steel-coordinator), HORZON HEROGRID 2025-2028 and since 2008-today KOMET 3 project of Austrian Academy of Science. He was in last 20 year principal investigation of bilateral project with Universities and institute in France, Germany, Austria, Belgum, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Rusia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, USA, Argentina and PR China.

Biography: Chengzhi Qi is a Professor of Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. He received his degree of Dr.Sci. in Physics and Mathematics in Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2007, received his Ph.D degree in Technical Science in St.Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in 1992. He is currently Сhangjiang scholar of Ministry of Education of P R China, the Selectee of the National Talent Engineering, professor of civil engineering in Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. He is the executive member of the Chinese Society of Rock mechanics and Engineering, and the Chairman of the Engineering Safety and Protection Subsociety and other academic duties.The areas of his expertise are rock dynamics, deep-level geomechanics, underground engineering. He is the author of more than 370 publications in these areas, including more than 120 Sci-indexed papers. He has received one First (2011) and two second prizes (2008, 2012) of National Science and Technical Progress of China.