Professor Markus Kästner is a full professor of Computational and Experimental Solid Mechanics at the Institute of Solid Mechanics, TU Dresden, Germany, where he also serves as the institute’s director. He received his diploma and doctorate in mechanical engineering from TU Dresden, and completed his habilitation in solid mechanics in 2015. His academic journey includes a stay at KTH Stockholm and a DAAD-funded postdoctoral research stay at the University of Glasgow.

Prof. Kästner leads research at the interface of continuum mechanics, multiscale modeling, and data-driven materials science. He is currently speaker of the Research Training Group RTG 2868 D³ – Data-driven design of resilient metamaterials and coordinator of the DFG Priority Programme 2489 DaMic – Data-driven alloy and microstructure design of sustainable metals. Since 2024, he also serves as a reviewer (Fachkollegiat) for Mechanics at the German Research Foundation (DFG).

He is an active member of several scientific societies (GAMM, DGM), and a frequent reviewer for international funding agencies and high-impact journals. Prof. Kästner has organized numerous scientific events and summer schools on multiscale mechanics, phase-field modeling, and data-driven methods in materials research.

Lisa Scheunemann studied Civil Engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) and graduated in 2011. She started her doctoral studies in solid mechanics at the group of Jörg Schröder (UDE) and received her doctoral degree in 2017. For her dissertation, she was awarded several prizes. After a short phase as a PostDoc in the group in Essen, she became a junior professor at the Chair of Applied Mechanics, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau in 2021. Her research interests lie in the field of computational and applied mechanics with a focus on microstructured materials.

Kevin Linka is an Independent Junior Research Group Leader at TU Hamburg. He earned his doctoral degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University and held postdoctoral positions at TU Hamburg and Stanford University. He also served as a substitute professor at RWTH Aachen. His research focuses on computational biomechanics, hybrid constitutive modeling, and data-driven methods in continuum mechanics.

His work has been recognized with several awards and scholarships, including the Richard-von-Mises Prize of GAMM, a DAAD postdoctoral fellowship, and funding through the Emmy Noether Programme of the DFG.

Fleurianne Bertrand studied mathematics at Leibniz University Hannover, where she also earned her doctorate. In 2014, she successfully completed her PhD in Hannover with a dissertation entitled "Approximated Flux Boundary Conditions for Raviart-Thomas Finite Elements on Domains with Curved Boundaries and Applications to First-Order System Least Squares". In 2018, she was appointed Junior Professor of Computational Mathematics at Humboldt University of Berlin, and in 2020, she took up an assistant professorship at the University of Twente (NL) before accepting a professorship at TU Chemnitz in 2023.

Her research interests are broad, as she develops efficient computational methods for solving partial differential equations, which she applies—particularly in collaboration with engineers—to tackle various problems. Her main focus is the development of adaptive, stress-based finite element methods that not only allow for accurate approximations of physical variables but also automatically adjust the computational grids as needed, significantly reducing the required computing time.

In her participation in various research projects, she takes advantage of the fact that related computational methods can be applied in entirely different fields. Through mathematically rigorous estimates, she ensures that faster computed approximations remain within a desired tolerance range. For example, at the University of Duisburg-Essen, together with Prof. Dr. Carolin Birk and Prof. Dr. Christian Meyer of TU Dortmund, she developed a model for reliably predicting crack propagation caused by thermally induced stresses. The project was funded by the Mercator Research Center Ruhr (Mercur).

Later, she took part in an Antarctic expedition as part of an interdisciplinary team to study the mechanics of ice. Since moving to HU Berlin, Bertrand has also been working on solving so-called eigenvalue problems in order to determine a system’s natural frequencies and vibration modes.

Karen Veroy-Grepl is a Full Professor of Computational Science in the Centre for Analysis, Scientific Computing and Applications (CASA) at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Her research areas of interest include numerical methods for partial differential equations, model order reduction, and uncertainty quantification. Her current research focuses on the development of reduced order modelling techniques for multi-scale simulations in mechanics and on data assimilation and optimal experimental design.

Karen Veroy-Grepl received her B.S. from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, and her S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, USA. After spending two years in industry, she returned to academia in 2009. She was appointed a junior professor at RWTH Aachen University in 2010, and was promoted to professor in 2014. Veroy-Grepl was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2019, and joined the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at Eindhoven University in 2020. She serves on the editorial board of several international journals, and on the scientific advisory council of the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE).

Maximilian Ries earned his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in continuum mechanics and multiscale simulations, from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2017. He then pursued a Ph.D. in Prof. Paul Steinmann's group, where he integrated elements of computational chemistry, mechanical engineering, and materials science to explore the complex structure-property relationships of polymer nanocomposites.

His involvement in the RTG 2423 Frascal further enhanced the interdisciplinary nature of his doctoral research. In 2023, his work was recognized with the Best PhD Thesis Award from the European Community on Computational Mechanics in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS).

Currently, Maximilian is an early-career researcher at the Institute of Applied Mechanics at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, where he aims to establish his own research group. He is expanding his research focus to the mechanics of adhesive joints, employing reactive molecular dynamics and multiscale techniques to translate molecular insights into engineering applications.

Isabelle Noll studied Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Continuum Mechanics and Simulation Technologies at TU Dortmund University, where she received her M.Sc. degree in 2017. She subsequently pursued a Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Andreas Menzel, concentrating on the modeling and simulation of additive manufacturing processes, particularly involving high-fidelity models with phase transformations and computationally efficient models at the part scale. She obtained her doctoral degree in 2024 with the dissertation entitled “Thermomechanical Modelling and Simulation of Laser Powder Bed Fusion Processes.” Her thesis was awarded the Dr.-Klaus-Körper Prize from GAMM and the GACM Best Phd Award 2024, and she is a finalist for the ECCOMAS Award for the Best Ph.D. Theses of 2024.