Sonja Hellebrand is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen. After completing her Bachelor’s degree in Technomathematics with a application subject Civil Engineering, she obtained her Master’s degree in Computational Mechanics before beginning her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Jörg Schröder at the Institute of Mechanics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Duisburg-Essen. She successfully defended her dissertation, entitled “Numerical Simulation of Microstructural Residual Stresses of Hot Bulk Forming Parts with Targeted Cooling,” in August 2023.
Her current research as a postdoctoral researcher focuses primarily on material modeling of coupled problems in metals, but also in soft matter. In this context, she investigates the homogenization of microstructural characteristics such as microscopic residual stresses and phase transformations. In 2025, she spent two months at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, working in the group of Prof. Sanjay Govindjee to initiate a scientific collaboration.