BENJAMIN GORISSEN

Personal

Born in Heusden-Zolder (Belgium) in 1987

Education

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (KU Leuven, 2010). PhD in Mechanical Engineering (KU Leuven, 2015)

Career

FWO postdoc at KU Leuven (2015-2018) and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (2018-2021). Research lead on inflatable mechanics at Facebook (2021-2022). Assistant professor tenure track at KU Leuven since January 2022

Research

Creating robots out of rubbery materials to make them safe in interaction with humans and other organisms. Leveraging mechanical instabilities to control these soft robots without software, to make them adaptable to their environment

Teaching

Problem Solving and Engineering Design, Micro-electromechanical Systems, Engineering & Entrepreneurship

Unit

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Automation and Mechatronics (RAM) e-mail benjamin.gorissen@kuleuven.be

Merlijn Hurx

Personal

Born in Eindhoven in 1981 (the Netherlands). Married to Martine and father of Senja and Ilia

Education Research Master in Art History (Utrecht University, 2006). PhD (TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture, 2010)

Career

PhD on the building practice of the late Middle Ages in the Low Countries. Assistant Professor Architectural History at Utrecht University (2010-2022). Awarded with a Veni-grant by NWO in 2013. Since 2022 Professor of Architectural History at KU Leuven

Research

The history of design and construction practices between 1400 and 1700, with a focus on low-lying deltas. Digital Architectural History

Teaching Architectural history before 1800

Unit

Department of Architecture, History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture e-mail merlijn.hurx@kuleuven.be

Greet Kerkhofs

Personal

Born in Herentals (Belgium) in 1981

Education

Master in Chemical Engineering Technology (Groep T, 2003), Master of Science in Materials Engineering (KU Leuven, 2004), PhD in Materials Engineering (KU Leuven, 2009)

Career

PhD on morphological and mechanical characterization of porous materials by means of micro-CT. IWT-OZM and FWO postdoc at KU Leuven within Prometheus (KU Leuven division for Skeletal Tissue Engineering), postdoc at the Université de Liège, and research visit at the University of Lille (France –six months). Visiting Professor (10%) at KU Leuven from 2017-2022. Associate Professor at the UCLouvain since 2017, and part-time (10%) Assistant Professor at KU Leuven since October 2022

Research

Expert in contrast-enhanced micro-CT (CECT) for the 3D visualization and characterization of mineralized and soft biological tissues in different fields of

Aritra Konar

Personal

Born in Kolkata (India) in 1988

Education

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (University of Minnesota, USA, 2014). PhD in Electrical Engineering (University of Minnesota, USA, 2017)

Career

Recipient of the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2016-2017). Postdoctoral studies at the University of Virginia, USA (2017-2022).

Assistant Professor tenure track at KU Leuven since September 2022 application; with the goal to perform X-ray-based 3D histology of tissues. When combined with in-situ mechanical testing (4D-CECT), this technique enables to better understand the link between tissue microstructure and its functional behaviour under physiological loading; this knowledge could lead to improved understanding of diseases as well as to the optimization of current disease treatments. The ContrasTTeam (www.contrastteam.be) is a unique highly interdisciplinary team, with researchers from both the KU Leuven and UCLouvain (or joint PhDs) working on the advancement and application of CECT, with collaborations worldwide

Teaching

Quality Control and Advanced Non-Destructive Testing

Unit

Department of Materials Engineering, Structural Composites and Alloys, Integrity, and Non-destructive Testing (SCALINT) e-mail greet.kerckhofs@kuleuven.be

Research

Signal processing and optimization, with its application to network science. I study problems arising in social network analysis and formulate them as optimization problems. I also devise algorithms for solving these problems at scale, and analyse their performance

Teaching System Identification and Modeling

Unit

Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), STADIUS Center for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing and Data Analytics e-mail aritra.konar@kuleuven.be