Speakers & Chairmen

Andrés Aparicio is Senior Manager of ADAS and Connected and Automated Vehicles at Applus IDIADA. After coursing a masters degree on mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, he joined IDIADA in 2005. He has always been involved in the field of active and passive safety, both offering development services for industrial partners and participating in R&D projects, such as APROSYS, ASSESS and AsPeCSS. Since May 2015, he coordinates the PROSPECTs project, funded by the EC and dealing with active safety for vulnerable road users. He also  participates in the Euro NCAP working groups for safety assist features and has been involved in the development of the new AEB and LSS test protocols.

Since May 2023, Matthew Avery is Director of Strategic Development of Euro NCAP. In his previous position as Director of Research, Matthew Avery led detailed research into Automated Driving technologies predicting its future impact and supporting the insurance community around the next generation of driver assistance systems. In 2011 Matthew Avery was awarded the US Government Special Award of Appreciation for his contribution to the field of global traffic safety and his work has also been recognised by Global NCAP with the 2016 Safety Award presented to Thatcham Research in 2016.

Dr. Bu Xiaobing, who works at CATARC and is the director of the Impact Test Analysis Department，he is engaged in the research of passive safety development and virtual testing, has published 8 SCI papers and more than 20 EI papers, and has rich theoretical knowledge and engineering development experience. At present, he is mainly engaged in the technical research and protocols revision of passive safety virtual testing, active and passive safety integration virtual testing.

Aeronautical engineer from ESTACA, supplemented by a DEA in fluid mechanics. A short stint at UTAC in the 1980s as an approval and research engineer on protective helmets, then for 20 years within a French SME, manufacturer of PPE, as type approval manager then successively Quality Director, R&D Director, and Customer Service Director. Joining UTAC at the end of 1999 as Head of the Passive Safety department, then in 2006 Head of the Safety department and from July 2012 in charge of Regulatory Affairs for the UTAC Group. In addition to monitoring regulatory developments in Geneva, within the framework of the GRSP, or in Brussels, with the European Commission, Pierre was President of various international working groups, on frontal impact and the compatibility of light vehicles as well as on a new regulation for child restraint systems. Member of the board of directors of Euro NCAP from 2000 to 2022, he was its President from 2017 to the end of 2020 and still actively participates in the work of Euro NCAP by chairing technical groups (tertiary safety). Retired from UTAC at the end of 2017, since February 2020 he has been a member of the French Committee of Experts placed under the National Road Safety Council and the Interministerial Delegate for Road Safety.

Maren Finck is a Project Manager at carhs.training gmbh. From 2008 - 2015 she worked at EDAG as a project manager responsible for vehicle safety. Previously, she worked several years at carhs GmbH and TECOSIM as an analysis engineer with a focus on pedestrian safety and biomechanics. Maren has been a firefighter at the local fire station since 1994 and uses her experience as a technical rescue instructor.

Ilse Harms works at the RDW, where she is a leading figure in the field of human factors and vehicle automation. She is a traffic psychologist who enjoys working at the intersection of theory and practice. She conducted her doctoral research at the University of Groningen while working for the Dutch government. Ilse is an expert and advisor in the field of human factors that influence behaviour in traffic. At Euro NCAP she is also the alternate director for the Netherlands and the Chair for the HMI & HF Working Group.

Corina Klug is assistant professor at the Vehicle Safety Institute of Graz University of Technology in Austria, where she teaches students in the field of Vehicle Safety and Trauma Biomechanics and performs research on accident and injury prevention with a special focus on the usage of Human Body Models for safety assessments. Since 2015, she has led the CoHerent project in which the first certification procedure for human body models was developed for Euro NCAP. In 2019 she became the secretary of the newly founded Euro NCAP working group for Virtual Testing Crashworthiness. She is one of the two pilots of the new initiative HBM4VT, a framework of international experts to develop a roadmap for Human Body Models usage in Virtual Testing. In 2016 she has won the Young Scientist Award for the best research work in digital Human Modelling presented at the 2016 International Symposium "Human Modelling and Simulation in Automotive Engineering".

Adriano Palao is an Automotive Engineer with over 10 years of experience in the Vehicle Testing and Validation domain. As a Technical Manager for ADAS & AD at Euro NCAP, he steers the many Working Groups related to Active Safety into developing ever-increasing requirements towards promoting enhanced vehicle safety.

Volker Sander has been head of the Vehicle Safety Department of ADAC, which includes active safety, passive safety and accident research, since 2010. Before that, from 1999-2007 he was in charge of the construction of ADAC’s crash test lab as a team manager. From 2007-2010 he lead the Passive Safety Department of ADAC. At Euro NCAP he is a member of the Board of Directors and chairman of the frontal impact working group. In addition to that he is member of the side impact working group, the technical working group and the ratings group of Euro NCAP. He is also lecturer for vehicle safety at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich.

Richard Schram started his career as a consultant at TNO Automotive in 2005. From 2010 to 2021 he was Technical Manager and Technical Director at Euro NCAP. He has been back at Euro NCAP as Technical Director since January 2023, after a short period as Director of Product Safety at Arrival.

Director and Professor Andre Seeck has been Vice President of the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) since April 2022, where he heads the Vehicle Technology division. In this position he is responsible for the preparation of European Safety Regulations. Furthermore he represents the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport in the Board of Directors of Euro NCAP and he is the chairman of the strategy group on automated driving and of the rating system. These positions enable him to gain deep insight into current and future developments in vehicle safety. In 2017 NHTSA awarded him the U. S. Government Special Award of Appreciation.

After studying mechanical engineering and being awarded a doctorate at TU Darmstadt, Dr. Seiniger moved to the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in 2009. Here Dr. Seiniger is involved in development and performance of tests for emergency braking systems and active safety for Euro NCAP and in developing and updating the respective legislatory framework (regulations). He was member of several Euro NCAP working groups and is Deputy Head of section “Active Vehicle Safety and Driver Assistance Systems”.