Speakers & Chairmen

Nithesh Acharya is currently employed at EDAG Engineering GmbH in Ingolstadt, where he is involved in the development of the PRIMUS Virtual Dummy in LS-DYNA and his Master Thesis focuses on achieving compliance with EURO NCAP TB 024 certification. His work plays a key role in supporting EDAG’s strategic initiatives in virtual testing and human body modeling aimed at enhancing automotive safety.  He completed his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and is currently pursuing master’s degree at Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences in Germany. Prior to this, he worked at Toyota India as part of the Vehicle Design Engineering team in pedestrian protection analysis. His research interests include human body modeling, virtual crash testing, and Pedestrian Protection Analysis.

Dr. Cynthia A. Bir is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Wayne State University. Dr. Bir has extensive research experience in the area of human injury tolerances. Her research interests include sports injury biomechanics, ballistic impacts, blast injury, and forensic biomechanics. She has studied the effects of impacts to all regions of the body and is known world-wide for her work in this area.

Dr. Karan Devane, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, conducting research at the Center for Injury Biomechanics. With over 13 years in injury biomechanics, his expertise spans finite element human body modeling, active musculature, crash simulation, and injury risk prediction for automotive and aerospace contexts. He's a key member of the GHBMC's Full Body Models Center of Expertise, contributing to industry-standard FE human body models for crash injury prediction and prevention. His interests include developing computational human body models. Dr. Devane earned his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech-Wake Forest and holds MTech and BE degrees from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Shivaji University, respectively.

Andre Eggers is a researcher at BASt (German Federal Highway and Transport Research Institute) since 2006 working in the area of biomechanics, evaluation of dummies, human models and virtual testing. He studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Hamburg and Biomedical Engineering at Wayne State University. 2013 he completed his doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin. He contributed to several European research projects like IMVITER, THORAX, ASSESS, SENIORS and OSCCAR. He is representing BASt in Euro NCAP working groups related to injury criteria and virtual testing.

Since 2010, Jing Fei has been working in the area of vehicle crash safety. Since 2013, she has joined China Automotive Engineering Research Institute after graduation and has been involved in components testing, restraint system performance development and technical research of C-IASI. From 2019 to present, she has been responsible for the research, protocol writing and revision related to vehicle occupant of C-IASI.

Thanassis Fokylidis obtained his degree in Mechanical Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he studied from 1999 to 2005. Since 2008, he has been a dedicated member of BETA CAE Systems, contributing extensively within the Customer Service Department. Currently, he holds the position of Senior Customer Service Engineering Manager where he leads the Crash Safety applications department.

Jason Forman is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVA), and is the Executive Director of the UVA Center for Applied Biomechanics. He has over 20 years experience in injury biomechanics research, focusing primarily of automobile safety. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, and serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Traffic Injury Prevention. His work has included developing performance targets for anthropomorphic test devices; study of the influence of age, sex, and obesity on automobile occupant injury risk; and development of novel methods to predict injury risk from the output of human body models.

Bronislaw (Bronek) Gepner is a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on injury biomechanics, human body modeling, and the development of advanced computational tools to improve occupant and pedestrian safety. He has led and contributed to a range of projects sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), and various vehicle OEMs—among other sponsors. Since 2023, he has served on the FIA’s Research Strategy Working Group (RSWG), helping to shape global research directions in motorsport and road safety. He is also a member of the scientific committee for the International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury (IRCOBI). Dr. Gepner holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Florida State University and has a background in structural analysis and high-performance computing. His work integrates high-fidelity finite element modeling with experimental validation and simulation-driven analysis to advance the predictive capabilities of human body models in automotive safety research.

George Hu joined Humanetics in 2014. At Humanetics, he worked as CAE engineer in dummy model development. Today he is CAE engineering manager. In his position, he is responsible for technical support and FE model development, focusing on Chinese insurance and consumer tests.

Dr. Christoph Klein is a researcher at the Virtual Vehicle Research GmbH in Graz, Austria. He is working in the group of occupant and VRU safety and his research focus are Human Body Models. He obtained his PhD at the Vehicle Safety Institute at Graz University of Technology in 2017.

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".

Haiyan Li is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Tianjin University of Science and Technology in China and the director of International Research Association on Emerging Automotive Safety Technology. She holds prestigious positions including membership in the Professional Degree Education Guidance Committee of the Tianjin Municipal People’s Government Degree Committee as well as Vice Chairmanship of the Traffic Injury and Trauma Database Study Group within the Trauma Branch of the Chinese Medical Association. Dr. Li and her team are engaged in research in the fields of automotive safety and injury biomechanics. She has published more than 100 academic papers.

Fenna Neumann holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from the Technical University of Hamburg (TUHH). In the final year of her Master's program, she joined the vehicle safety department at Volkswagen as an intern working on human body models. During this time, she completed her Master's thesis at TUHH in collaboration with Volkswagen, investigating sensitivity of spinal positioning with respect to fracture risk in reclined seating postures. Since 2023, Fenna has been pursuing a Ph.D. at Volkswagen and Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich, focusing on the analysis of lumbar spine loading using human body models.

Simona Roka is a Senior R&D Engineer and Project Manager bringing more than ten years of dedicated experience in automotive passive safety and injury biomechanics. Actively engaged in shaping the future of safety protocols through participation in industry Working Groups and knowledge-sharing initiatives focused on improving road safety outcomes worldwide. As a PhD candidate in Injury Biomechanics, I am passionate about driving innovation through collaboration and evidence-based engineering approaches.

Mr. Lambros Rorris has studied Civil Engineering in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) (1987 – 1993). He worked as a research assistant in the dept. of Civil Engineering of AUTh from 1993 - 1998. Since 1999 he is with BETA CAE Systems as a developer in Crash, Safety, and crash solvers support. Currently he is the Group Director leading the Crash and Safety R&D Group of BETA CAE Systems International AG.

Claudia Sbriglio, a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at Wroc³aw University of Science and Technology. She holds a BSc in Biomechanical Engineering and an MSc in Automotive Engineering. Her research focuses on biomechanical modelling of head injuries, with a particular interest in cerebrospinal fluid dynamics under crash conditions. She has experience in FEM, numerical simulations, and human body modelling, gained through both academic projects and industry placements in the automotive and biomechanical sectors. Her work contributes to advancing personalised approaches in head injury prediction and occupant safety.

Niklas Schmidt studied Industrial Engineering at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, specializing in operations research and textile machinery. During his studies, he spent seven months abroad at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. After six years, he graduated with the German degree “Diplom Ingenieur” in November 2024. Since January 2025, he has been working as a Research Associate at the Chair of Development and Assembly of Textile Products at the Institute of Textile Machinery and High-Performance Material Technology (ITM) of TU Dresden. His area of expertise is body scanning and simulation related to clothing-body interaction.

My name is Jingjun Su, a master's degree candidate studying at the School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology. I obtained a bachelor's degree in Internet of Things Engineering from the School of Information Engineering, Chang'an University. Now I mainly focus on the application of artificial intelligence in automotive safety.

Dr. Abbas Talimian is a senior researcher at the Department of Biomechanical Human Body Models, New Technology Research Centre, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. His research focuses on occupant safety and the development of advanced passive safety tools for autonomous vehicles, particularly addressing non-standard seating configurations. He aims to bridge advanced modelling with practical safety solutions for the evolving field of autonomous transportation.

Dr. Jisi Tang is an associate professor at the Bioengineering College, Chongqing University, China. Dr. Tang received his PhD from Tsinghua University, with his work focusing on numerical human body modeling and computational analysis of injury biomechanics. He proposes to leverage geometric deep learning and discrete differential geometry in human shape analysis, and has established a series of advanced techniques to enhance efficiency and biofidelity of human modeling, including self-supervised 3D non-rigid registration and fast, biofidelic repositioning, that empowers AI-assisted mesh pattern transfer between non-isometric shapes, and parametric HBM pose reconfiguration in a simulation-free manner.

Dr. Nicholas White serves as the Business Development Lead at Elemance, LLC, driving the adoption of Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) models across various industries. He leads user outreach, technical support, and model integration within emerging regulatory and virtual certification frameworks. Previously, he was an Occupant Safety Engineer at Apple, where he led biomechanical simulations and testing for autonomous systems and the Apple Vision Pro. He also served as a consultant at Exponent, where he handled complex injury analyses. He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Virginia Tech–Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences and an M.S. from the Wayne State University Bioengineering Center, specializing in injury biomechanics. As a former Emergency Medical Technician, he maintains a practical focus on understanding injury mechanisms to improve real-world safety outcomes.

Yunquan Xia graduated from Tongji University of China, Master’s degree of Vehicle Engineering, and has been working at company of Joyson Safety Systems of China since 2015. He is currently part of Systems and CAE & Engineering Testing safety group within the passive safety department of Joyson China. His research focuses on the application of ATD Dummy models and human body models to predict the product performance and improve the Airbag/Seatbelt design of passive safety by CAE simulation in C-NCAP/C-IASI/E-NCAP/all other safety regulations.

He deeply involved in the research and iteration of automotive safety assessment protocols such as C-IASI and I-VISTA, and currently responsible for the development Chinese human body models(AC-HUMs) in CAERI.