Webinar on aluminium for light weight and sustainability 

Christian is Director of Innovation at European Aluminium and manages the development the Innovation Hub.

Christian studied chemical engineering at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) and received his doctorate in 1996 from the metal unit. After a post-doctorate at KULeuven, in 1999 he started working at the European Aluminum Association (EAA) in various domains related to education, technology and environment. 

In 2014, Christian founded the company ‘Metals Sustainability Consulting’ and became a consultant not only for European Aluminium but also for other sectoral associations such as Eurometaux. Since 2014, Christian is also the manager of the Metals For Buildings alliance, which gathers together 10 European or international metal sector associations that are active in the building sector.

Francesca has been an Innovation Project Manager with European Aluminium since September 2021. She previously worked as a development chemist in a chemical company supplying the automotive sector.

Francesca holds a PhD from the Electrochemical and Surface Engineering group (SURF-VUB, Belgium) and an MSc in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering from the Technical Danish University (Denmark). 

Philippe is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Novelis, having passion to grow the people and push further the limits. 

Philippe is responsible for leading the company’s product innovation strategy and research and development (R&D) across all regions and markets. He oversees Novelis’ global network of Research Centers and Customer Solution Centers throughout Europe, Asia and Americas. 

Philippe joined Novelis with the company’s acquisition of Aleris. Prior to joining Aleris, Philippe held R&D, Operation, and Technology roles at Pechiney and Montupet. Throughout his nearly 40-year career, he has been involved in the aluminum industry, serving the automotive, can, aerospace and specialty markets. Philippe is also co-Chair of the Innovation Hub and has been highly supportive of its development since its early stage in 2015. 

Martin has more than 25 years’ experience in different raw material-related industries, with magnesium the most significant one. He has held executive positions with leading industry players such as Hydro Magnesium and Magontec. In 2009 he founded FAURIS, a company that provides industry services on a global basis. Martin is also European Representative and former Chairman of the European Committee of the IMA (International Magnesium Association) and President of the Critical Raw Material Alliance. Martin is also a registered expert of the EU.

Patrik joined European Aluminium in 2010. He is now Director Mobility and Strategic Projects. Previously he worked with Vehicle Acoustics as a research fellow at KU Leuven. He holds a Master of Science in Vehicle Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden (KTH).

Manel is the Head of the Light Alloys Research Line in the Unit of Metallic and Ceramic Materials of Eurecat Technology Centre of Catalonia. He is the Technical Coordinator of the SALEMA project. 

Manel has more than 15 years of experience in research projects related to High Pressure Die Casting and processing of aluminium alloys, working at CEIT, CURAL (University of Quebec), ASCAMM and Eurecat. He has participated in 10 European projects, being the technical director of four, in addition to numerous national projects. He is the author or co-author of 13 articles in indexed scientific journals and over 20 communications in national and international conferences.

His PhD in Materials Science was earned at the University of Navarra in 2006.

Carla is a metallurgist and, since 2019, is the Research and Development Centre Manager for Constellium University Technology Centre.

Carla has over 20 years’ international experience in both fundamental and industrial R&D. Having come previously from the steel industry, she joined Constellium Technology Center (C-TEC) in 2013, bringing her expertise in hot and cold deformation processes, precipitation mechanisms and the development of crystallographic texture. She has, therefore, had the opportunity to transfer her knowledge in these areas to aluminium alloys and to support the company in further developing scientific understanding in strengthening mechanisms. She has also contributed to internal and collaborative projects that aim to unlock further weight lightening opportunities in the  aerospace and automotive sectors. In 2015 she started working closely with Constellium Automotive Structure & Industry (AS&I) as a technical expert, focusing on extrusion products, providing metallurgical expertise and ensuring technology transfer of novel products and process to the automotive extrusion plants, while continuously supporting AS&I’s core research and development rrogramme by leading and supporting several collaborative academic projects. Since 2018 she has provided leadership to the R&D programme and new product development in AS&I’s Decin Plant. She currently leads the Alloy & Process Development Team in Constellium AS&I.

Lucia is an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and an Assistant Research Professor at the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering, CIMNE, in Barcelona, Spain. There she is leading a research unit on constitutive modelling of nonlinear processes, with a special focus on fatigue.

She is speaking today as the technical coordinator of the Fatigue4Light H2020 project.

For more than 14 years, Alvise has been actively involved in national and European projects, mainly focusing on developing materials in the energy sector. His work has revolved around creating new methods for making nanostructured and advanced alloys in powder form, including their classification and handling. Throughout his career, he’s gained experience in powder consolidation and deposition processes.

Alvise gained his MSc in Material Sciences at the University of Padua. He now works at MBN nanomaterialia.  

In this event Alvise represents the FLAMINGo project.

Andoni’s professional career started in 2015 as CAE Engineer at Gestamp R&D Paris, developing projects for the main French car manufacturers. Since 2022, he has been involved in OEM and other R&D projects worldwide as a Product Engineer based in Spain.

Within his position, Andoni contributes to the design of components based on Gestamp’s technologies and highly engineered products, focused on weight, CO2 footprint, cost and safety parameters.

Andoni’s academic background includes a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Faculty Engineering of Bilbao and a master’s degree in Aerospace Propulsion from Cranfield University.

In this event, Andoni represents the Flexcrash project.

Sergi is a PhD candidate in Materials Science, with a research career at Eurecat since 2015, including a short stay at the Scania research centre. His main area of expertise covers the intricate fields of fatigue and fracture behaviour of metallic alloys.

In this event, Sergi represents the Flexcrash project.