We are happy to annouce our speaker team for the year 2024:

The Research Assistant and Doctoral Candidate, who is currently a few weeks away from completing his doctoral degree, was nominated as a GAMM Junior in the year 2022 by GAMM. The latter are young scientists who have been recognized by GAMM for their exceptional career paths, outstanding scientific achievements, and scientific commitment. The award is particularly reflected in their introduction to the scientific community, their organizing and conducting of their own projects concerning scientific qualification or nurturing scientific talent under the auspices of GAMM. Moreover, the award facilitates and actively encourages a robust interdisciplinary exchange among peers.

His recognition was largely due to his career trajectory, which took him from secondary school to a technical education, a course he not only completed ahead of schedule but also earned an advanced secondary school certificate through evening classes, again in a shorter format. This was followed by an early Bachelor’s degree and an exceptional Master’s thesis. This enabled him to gain a direct entry into the realm of science under the guidance of Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Andreas Ricoeur. In this capacity, he has produced four peer-reviewed publications in reputable journals, with two additional publications currently in the pipeline. His research focuses on the sustainable conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy by utilizing smart materials, thereby contributing to the presently heated debates.

As part of the GAMM Juniors, he led the first iteration of the mentoring program. He established all necessary structures and, with the support of other colleagues, organized a mentor from the professorial world for 19 Juniors. This turned out to be a great success for some of the participating juniors. Especially, it made some people get better jobs, learned a lot about science, and taught them important lessons. He also participated in other projects, such as selecting the best paper for the GAMM Journal 2022, taking on one of the editor roles in the GAMM journal in his capacity as Deputy Speaker, and supporting numerous other junior projects.

As of January 2024, he will assume the role of Juniors Speaker at GAMM, thereby representing the interests of the highly talented group of young scientists to GAMM and the wider community. One of his goals is to make GAMM accessible to non-doctoral students, allowing them to benefit from the powerful network and therefore have easier access to the world of science.

Georgia Kikis studied civil engineering, first, at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where she earned her bachelor’s degree. Afterward, she completed her master’s degree at RWTH Aachen, with a specialization in constructive engineering. Since she has always been interested in research, it was a natural choice for her to continue her studies with a PhD at the Chair of Structural Analysis and Dynamics under Professor Klinkel. She completed her PhD in 2022 and the main focus of her work was the treatment of locking effects in the framework of an isogeometric Reissner-Mindlin shell formulation as well as the description of brittle fracture in Reissner-Mindlin plates and shells using a phase-field model. For the latter, she cooperated with Professor Laura De Lorenzis, who was at that time at TU Braunschweig.

After the completion of her PhD, Professor Klinkel offered her a Postdoc position. During this period, she worked on a project for the SFB/TRR 280, which allowed her to cooperate with people from different research fields. She had two short scientific stays in Japan, first in 2013 at the Research Center for Disaster Mitigation Systems at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto and in 2022 at the Laboratory of Computational Mechanics and Optimal Design at Nagoya University. Since February 2024 she is a senior researcher at Professor Birk’s institute at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She was elected as GAMM Junior for the years 2023-2025.

We congratulate all elected candidates and are looking forward to fruitful collaborations!