Andreas Öchsner, born 1970, is Full Professor in the Department Solid Mechanics and Design at the University of Technology Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia and Head of the Advanced Materials and Structure Lab. Having obtained a Diploma Degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Stuttgart (1997), Germany, he spent the time from 1997-2003 at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg as a research and teaching assistant to obtain his Doctor of Engineering Sciences (Dr.-Ing.). From 2003-2006, he worked as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Head of the Cellular Metals Group affiliated with the University of Aveiro, Portugal. His research interests are related to experimental and computational mechanics, cellular metals and thin structures and interphases. He has published over 290 scientific publications, comprising 11 research monographs, 13 book chapters and one teaching book on finite element methods. He is the general chairman of six international conferences on computational and experimental engineering (ACE-X series) and eight international conferences in the area of heat and mass transfer (DSL series). His editorial work comprises posts as Editor-in-chief of the international journal Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics (Springer), Editor-in-chief of the Springer book series on Advanced Structured Materials and Editor of SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology: Computational Mechanics. His research activities were recognised in 2010 by the award of a higher doctorate degree (D.Sc.) by the University of Newcastle, Australia.Markus Merkel, born 1967, is Full Professor at Aalen University of Applied Sciences. He graduated 1993 at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany) in Mechanical Engineering and finished his PhD-studies in 1998. Between 1999 and 2004, Markus Merkel worked at the International Technical Development Centre of Adam Opel AG. He became Professer in 2004 for Engineering Design and Computational Mechanics at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Markus Merkel is Head of the Institute of Virtual Product Development.
