2024 SIMULIA Champions!

These simulation ambassadors live around the globe, hailing from various countries in Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia, and work in multiple industries, such as aerospace, automotive, energy, high-tech, manufacturing, consumer goods and packaging, and academia. Our Champions are scientists and engineers, professors and researchers. They are experts in electronics, additive manufacturing, energy, and much more.

2024 Champions come from companies, including Google, Rolls-Royce Deutschland, LG Display, Siemens AG, Cummins, Logitech, Bridgestone Corp., Michelin AirCaptif, Delft University of Technology, Zebra Technologies, Stellantis, HD Hyundai XiteSolution and Medtronic China—to name a few.

This year’s Champions include:

• Anupam Akolkar, Modeling and Simulation Development Engineer at ALPLA Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH und Co KG, has had the opportunity to work in diverse fields and with a variety of simulation packages over the course of his career in academia and industry.
• Stephan Arndt, Head of Technology and Innovation at Mining One, has mentored and managed teams specialized in Geomechanics over the last two decades and is now driving the development and application of the IUCM rock mechanics model with SIMULIA Abaqus and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
• Hongsu Bae, Senior Engineer at LG Display, has worked on providing design and processing guides, meeting customer requirements, and giving design optimizations in electronic display devices using software from Dassault Systèmes.
• Damiano Beluzzo, Advanced Tyre Dynamics Expert at Prometeon Tyre Group, used his experience in Abaqus to develop new products, from light trucks to high-performance sports cars, helping to shorten the time-to-market process and now uses Abaqus systemically to develop new trucks and agricultural products.
• Kenny Chang, Senior Engineer at Mediatek, specializes in 5G millimeter-wave module development and has collaborated with Dassault multiple times to establish a comprehensive millimeter-wave simulation and evaluation process, aiming to provide clients with the best solutions.
• Davide Di Felice, Virtual Project Responsible at CNH – Agriculture, focuses on medium tractor platforms, dealing with and managing structural calculations, and, in parallel, is the contact person for CFD, Ergonomics, NVH, and system modeling activities.
• Bartosz Dywan, Analysis Engineer at TechnipFMC, develops models and conducts daily sensitivity analyses for pipeline installations using reel-lay technology and specializes in low and high-cycle fatigue calculations, employing the critical plane approach.
• Luca Francesconi, Sr. Mechanical Engineer FEA at Logitech, leads Finite Element Analysis for innovative wearable and hearable devices with a distinct focus on vibro-acoustic simulation and materials characterization, particularly in polymers.
• Nicholas Gates, Mechanical Systems Technical Specialist at Cummins Inc., started focusing on nonlinear static and linear dynamic structural and fatigue analysis of diesel after-treatment systems in the Emission Solutions business unit and now leads the benchmarking and acceptance testing of new versions before internal release.
• Svetlana Gossmann, Senior Key Expert / Project Manager at Siemens AG,  started to perform simulations in 2012 using CST low-frequency and particle solvers and now develops, investigates, and demonstrates design and operation concepts for assets in future power grids.
• Christoph Herzog, Mechanical Engineer at Rolls-Royce Deutschland, works in diverse areas of employment—from gearbox design to whole-engine-model setups to assess structural dynamics during extreme events such as fan blade-off.
• Satoshi Ito, Engineer at Toyota Motor Corp., has been using Abaqus since 1990 to analyze the strength and stiffness of chassis parts and has been actively implementing generative design, topology, and shape optimization software since 2019.
• Hiroshi Kadowaki, Technology Senior Specialist at Bridgestone Corp., has been engaged in structural analyses and design optimizations for tire and rubber products since he joined Bridgestone and is leading a team developing tire design and performance prediction tools and oversees research in simulation technologies of mechanical behavior for rubber products.
• Dong-Woo Kang, Chief Research Engineer at HD Hyundai XiteSolution, performs structural analysis of construction machinery and structural analysis of the engine using Abaqus and is convinced of Abaqus because of its excellent performance in the analysis of gasket sealing, the behavior analysis of rubber-like materials, and the thermo-mechanical analysis for simulating engine on-off behavior.
• Sudhakar Karunamurthy, Associate Manager at Apollo Tyres, has expertise in various structural, vibration and thermal-electric simulations using Abaqus and is passionate about exploring the multi-physics and vehicle dynamics nature of tires.
• Young-Tae Kim, Expert Researcher at Hankook Tire and Technology, Virtual Technology Project, has used Abaqus for about 20 years and is currently developing an In-house FE Code for tire performance simulation and analysis of issues using Abaqus.
• Ronald Lavin, Technical Fellow in antennas, radomes, and computational electromagnetics. at Boeing, has 30 years of experience in cosite interference, antennas, radomes, bandwidth management, and electromagnetic simulations, and 16 years of experience using CST Studio Suite.
• David Lechat, Electronic Engineer / EMC Expert at Schneider Electric, has developed the digital twins model of Schneider Electric’s product for seven years to secure project milestones/commitments, collect data and models for product selectors, assistance tools for customers and improve the EMC design quality.
• Chihun Lee, Senior Research Engineer at Hyundai Motor Company, is responsible for vehicle analysis regarding stiffness, strength and durability for vehicle development and has been using Abaqus for 13 years.
• Sanping Li, Company Expert at COMAC, has been engaged in FEM simulation analysis of the entire aircraft for a long time, with extensive experience in simulation fields such as static/dynamic strength, composite materials, fatigue and nonlinearity.
• Yi Li, Independent Researcher, has been engaged for 15 years in the research and development of strong-field superconducting magnets, especially in ultra-high field MRI and high-temperature superconducting magnets for various industrial applications.
• Hasher Maqbool, Head of Technical Analysis at Dunlop Aircraft Tyres, is responsible for spearheading new developments in numerical simulation tools and enhancing existing tire analysis methodologies, leveraging his deep understanding of simulation software provided under the umbrella of SIMULIA such as Abaqus and Isight.
• Armel Mbiakop-Ngassa, Director of Innovation at Michelin AirCaptif, supervises and develops the activities of a team of physicists with varied multiscale expertise, ranging from molecular modeling to tire mechanics and materials expertise and is an active user of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
• Serena Mennillo, Virtual Analysis Engineer at Stellantis Italy, has worked in the development of new methodologies for material modeling, fracture mechanics, short-time event fatigue and thermo-structural analysis. Since 2019, she has been a Senior Technical Specialist for Metal and spotweld durability and strength inside Stellantis’ organization.
• Hadas Moyal, FEA Structural Simulation Team Leader at Iscar, has been leading the structural simulation team for about 10 years, and the structural simulations were carried out mainly with Abaqus. In the last two years, she has started to use SIMULIA on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
• Seung Ryul Na, Senior Engineer at LG Electronics, has been using Abaqus since 2001. His main research field is the non-linear problems associated with the contact mechanics, plasticity, and delimitation issues in high-tech applications.
• Marco Nicoletto, EMC Engineer at Thales Alenia Space Italia, focuses on system-level electromagnetic analysis from extremely low frequency up to the Ka-Band. He contributed to several EMC-challenging ESA projects in the last 10 years.
• Jing Niu, Staff Engineer, MBD at Envision Energy, uses Simpack for wind turbine, drivetrain and gearbox dynamic simulation, dynamic issues investigation and optimization.
• Utku Özden, Lead Specialist Simulation Technology at Velux A/S, has 20 years of expertise in computer-aided design and finite element analysis. His daily responsibilities revolve primarily around devising structural mechanics solutions and exploring material applications for roofing-based light and ventilation solutions.
• Deepak Pai, RF Desense Engineer at Meta, serves as an integral part of Meta Reality labs in Sunnyvale, CA, USA, focusing on Desense design in the Smart device product line up and has over 10 years of experience in the consumer electronics industry.
• Mathias Peirlinck, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Delft University of Technology, joined the Living Heart Project consortium in 2014. His current research focuses on integrating multimodal experimental data, physics-based modeling, and machine learning techniques to understand, explore, and predict the multiscale behavior of the human heart, both in health and disease.
• Krishna Rao, Antenna Engineer at Google, is currently responsible for looking into SAR and regulatory compliance issues while optimizing for performance and multiband tunable antenna matching designs and also guides students working in the RF/EM domain.
• Sergio Sadaba, Senior CAE Project Engineer – Thermomechanical at IDOM Engineering, Consulting, Architecture S.A.U., has 20 years of professional experience in mechanical analysis and design and is currently working as a technical leader in the conceptual design of the new generation of commercial fusion reactors and their key auxiliary equipment.
• Guy Tantchou, Numerical Simulation Engineer at Danone, is passionate about the strength of materials and uses SIMULIA in Applied Research to overcome various industrial challenges where the performances of packaging (cups, bottles, pouches, stretch films, cardboard, cans, tins, …) are critically important.
• Brix Tegeder, Simulation Engineer at Mercedes-Benz AG, uses Simpack models for real-time testing on their Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) test benches and other topics such as the suspension controller application.
• Guannan Wang, Advanced Lead Engineer at LM Windpower, has used PowerFLOW for more than nine years as a primary CAA tool to design, optimize, and analyze aeroacoustics performances of wind turbine blades and other applications.
• Guobin Wang, Simulation Engineer at Valeo, has been using SIMULIA since 2010 and is currently responsible for conducting FEA Multidisciplinary Structural Analysis to optimize product designs and ensure their reliability.
• Jeffrey Williams has spent the last 20 years emphasizing simulation optimization techniques as a senior engineer to accelerate time to market and maximize reliability. In both a design and analysis role, he has worked with a variety of downhole tools, systems, and methods and had a key role in success.
• Jerry Wong, Senior Mechanical Engineer / Engineering Project Manager at NOV, boasts over two decades of diverse experience. With a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from West Virginia University, Jerry excels in utilizing Abaqus to simulate complex structures.
• Sripathi Yarasi, RF Advanced Engineer at Zebra Technologies, has been using CST Studio Suite since 2006 to design antennas, verify if antennas designed by vendors are correct, fix any issues that arise during the product cycle, and estimate some FCC parameters such as SAR and HAC.
• Roc Zha, Principal Scientist at Medtronic China R&D Center, has an excellent theoretical foundation and application experience in solid mechanics, materials science and engineering and finite element simulation with 16 years of experience in computer modeling and simulation.

SIMULIA is happy to welcome the 2024 Champions and thank them for their efforts to advance the development and adoption of simulation technology! We look forward to hearing about their work and expertise. They will share their stories here in the SIMULIA blog and in the SIMULIA Community.

Stay tuned for more SIMULIA Champions announcements!

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