About the Author:

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Dr. h.c. mult Holm Altenbach has held positions at the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg and at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. He graduated from Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1980 (with a diploma on the Dynamics and Strength of Machines), where he defended his Ph.D. in 1983 and was awarded the title Doctor of Technical Sciences in 1987.
Currently, he is Full Professor of Engineering Mechanics at the Otto von Guericke University, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Mechanics (since 2011), and has been Acting Director of the Institute of Mechanics since 2015. His areas of scientific interest are general theory of elastic and inelastic plates and shells, creep and damage mechanics, strength theories, and nano- and micromechanics.

He has been honored with various awards, including the 1992 Krupp Award (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation); 2000 Best Paper of The Year from the Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design; 2003 Gold Medal from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Politechnika Lubelska, Lublin, Poland; 2004 Semko Medal from the National Technical University of Kharkov, Ukraine; 2007 Doctor honoris causa from the National Technical University Kharkov, Ukraine; 2011 Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science; 2014 Doctor honoris causa from the Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania; 2016 Doctor honoris causa from the Vekua Institute, Tbilisi, Georgia; and the 2018 Alexander von Humboldt Award (Poland). Since 2019 he is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and since 2021 - of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Michael Beitelschmidt is since 2010 full professor for Dynamics and Mechanism Design at the Institute of Solid Mechanics at TU Dresden, Germany. From 2005 to 2010 he held the position of a full professor for Vehicle Modeling and Simulation at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at TU Dresden. Since 2019 he is the Director of the Institute of Solid Mechanics and since 2008 the Dean of Studies for Mechatronics.
His research topics comprise the simulation of dynamics, vibration and acoustics applied to several industrial fields e.g. railway vehicles or textile machines. Other applications are thermoelectrics and thermomechanics. Since a few years robotics and drone technology are emerging research fields. In 2016 he spent 6 months as visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago with Prof. Ahmed Shabana.
From 1998 to 2005 Michael Beitelschmidt worked at Sulzer Innotec (R&D division) in Wintherthur (Switzerland) as engineer, the last position was the head of the mechanics department.
He completed his dissertation (Ph.D. thesis) in 1998 in impacts in multi-body systems at TU München under the supervision of Prof. Friedrich Pfeiffer.
He is a reviewer for multiple scientific journals and research funding organizations. Since 2019 he is review board member of the DFG (German Research Foundation).
Since 1998, Michael Beitelschmidt has published more than 120 conference and journal articles. He is co-author of two textbooks.

Professor Markus Kästner obtained his postdoctoral lecture qualification (Habilitation) for Solid Mechanics, Technische Universität Dresden, during 2015/12. In 2009/12, Prof. Markus Kästner did his graduation with doctoral degree Dr.-Ing. (with distinction) at Technische Universität Dresden, under Prof. V. Ulbricht being Supervisor. In 2016/10, Prof. Markus Kästner is a present Full Professor for Computational and Experimental Solid Mechanics and Acting Head of durability working group, Institute of Solid Mechanics, Technische Universität Dresden. During 2014/05-10, Prof. Markus Kästner did research visit in the University of Glasgow with the host Prof. René de Borst.
Prof. Markus Kästneris's Postdoctoral Scholarship (DAAD) includes the following: Head of working group Multiscale Modeling and Simulation Institute of Solid Mechanics, Technische Universität Dresden, in 2012/01-2016/09; Research Associate, Institute of Solid Mechanics, Technische Universität Dresden, in 2004/12-2011/12; in 2021, Editor of Special Issue on additive manufacturing, GAMM-Mitteilungen; in 2021, Editor of Special Issue on exploiting process-induced residual stresses, Archive of Applied Mechanics; in 2019, present Member of editorial board Archive of Applied Mechanics; in 2019, present Member of the German Association for Computational Mechanics (GACM); in 2017, present Member of the International Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (GAMM); and in 2014, present Member Dresden Center for Computational Materials Science (DCMS).
During 2012/1-2015/12 PI CRC 639, Prof. Markus Kästneris was Ongoing Reviewer for DAAD, DFG, AvH Foundation, HRZZ, and STIFT for several scientific journals including Nature, Computational Mechanics, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Journal of Computational Physics, and Mechanics of Materials.

Thomas Wallmersperger is a Full Professor for Mechanics of Multifunctional Structures at the Institute of Solid Mechanics at TU Dresden, Germany (since 2011), and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Science and Engineering at TU Dresden since 2016. From 2016 until 2019 he served as Director of the Institute of Solid Mechanics.
His research topics comprise coupled multi-field problems, adaptive materials and smart structures, modeling and simulation of soft and hard materials, discretization and numerical methods. Thomas Wallmersperger completed his dissertation (Ph.D. thesis) in 2003 and his habilitation in 2010 at University of Stuttgart, Germany. In the years 2005 and 2006 he conducted research stays as Visiting Professor at the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA, US, in the field of Electroactive Ionic Polymers with the Professors Donald J. Leo and Daniel J. Inman.
He has been a reviewer for multiple scientific journals and organizer of the Second International Symposium on Design, Modeling and Experiments of Adaptive Structures and Smart Systems (DeMEASS II) and of DeMEASS VII.
Professor Wallmersperger is Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, Editorial Advisory Board Member of Acta Mechanica, Advisory Committee Member of the International Symposium on Design, Modelling and Experiments of Adaptive Structures and Smart Systems, and Program Committee Member for the SPIE-Conference Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD).
Since 2000, Thomas Wallmersperger has published more than 150 conference and journal articles.