TBA

François Guillard is a senior lecturer at the School of Civil Engineering, the University of Sydney. He received his PhD in 2013 from Aix-Marseille Université, in France. His research aims to understand the behaviour of granular materials and brittle porous media such as sand and puffed rice from experiments, numerical simulations, and modelling. He has been developing new experimental facilities using multi-directional dynamic X-ray radiography allowing to obtain velocity field, grain-size, and orientation in-situ during the flow of granular materials. He is also actively pushing the boundaries of discrete element modelling by developing higher dimensional frictional grain simulations and associated coarse-graining tools.

TBA

Dr. Hideya Nakamura is an associate professor of Department of Chemical Engineering in Osaka Metropolitan University.

He received his Ph.D. in 2008 at Osaka Prefecture University. He then worked as a post-doc associate in University of Florida. He then moved to Osaka Prefecture University and started his academic carrier in 2010.

He is working on computational modeling of powder handling processes. He is also working on powder handling processes for all-solid-state battery and molecular modeling of the nano-bio interface. He is currently editor of Advanced Powder Technology. He is also appointed as JST Presto ("SAKIGAKE") Researcher from 2023.

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Pöschel is a physicist specializing in computational and statistical physics, with a focus on granular matter. His academic journey has included roles as Professor of Biophysics and Bioinformatics at the Charité in Berlin and Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Bayreuth. He currently leads the Institute for Multiscale Simulation at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany. Prof. Pöschel’s research is centered on the physics of granular matter, particularly the kinetic theory of granular gases and their unique properties. He has contributed to the development of Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations, which are widely used to model particle interactions and granular flows. His work has practical applications in areas such as industrial process optimization, 3D printing, granular damping, and material transport. Prof. Pöschel is deeply dedicated to mentoring students and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, guided by his belief in the importance of education and collaborative research. Many of the former PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from his group have gone on to hold leading positions in industry or pursue academic careers as professors at universities worldwide.

Shunying Ji, PhD, Professor in the Department of Engineering Mechanics, Dalian University of Technology, China. He obtained his Bachelor, Master and PhD Degrees in 1995, 1998 and 2001, respectively, in Dalian University of Technology. He studied granular flow dynamics with the discrete element method (DEM) as a postdoctoral fellow in Clarkson University, USA from 2003 to 2006. Dr. Ji studied the DEM method with irregular particle shapes. He developed the coupled DEM-FEM-CFD method to simulate the dynamics of complex granular system, and also developed the discrete element modelling software SDEM based on GPU-parallel algorithm. This software has been applied in polar ship and offshore engineering, soil mechanics, chemical engineering, and other engineering fields. He published more than 300 journal academic papers.

Rouven Weiler started to work in the field of Particle Technology and Particle Dynamics in 2007 as an academic researcher. During that time he worked on the prediction of residence time distributions in gravitiy blenders with the Discrete-Element-Method. With being awarded a Dr.-Ing. in 2012 he changed to industry, entering BASF SE in the department of Computational Particle & Fluid Dynamics. There he has worked in various projects focusing on applying DEM to questions in Particle Process Engineering in Chemical Industry, combining particle and fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer as well as chemical reactions. Since 2022 he is responsible for BASF's efforts in Computational Particle Dynamics as Global Scientific Discipline lead, followed by being appointed Principal Scientist for DEM Simulations of Particle Flows for Solids Processing in 2024.

Thomas Weinhart heads the Virtual Prototyping subgroup within the Granular Materials group at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. His work focuses on developing numerical methods to optimize granular machinery and processes across various industries such as pharmaceuticals, construction, and high-tech manufacturing. Thomas has made significant advancements in discrete particle modeling, including innovative approaches for modeling complex geometries and developing new contact models for processes like wetting, sintering, and melting. He is also recognized for his work on coarse-graining, a technique that translates particle data into continuum quantities, providing key insights into granular behavior. A strong advocate for open science, Thomas founded MercuryDPM, a widely used open-source platform for granular simulations, and developed MercuryCG, a tool for analyzing both experimental and simulation data. His work on the Moomph solver integrates these tools with a finite element solver, enabling multiscale, multiphysics simulations for complex industrial applications. Currently, Thomas is advancing digital twin techniques for real-time monitoring and optimization of industrial processes. His contributions continue to shape the understanding and application of virtual prototyping in the field of granular materials.