Student Committee: Aurélie Carlier
CHAIR: Aurélie Carlier
MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine
Maastricht University
Universiteitssingel 40, 6229 ER Maastricht – Room C3.577
The Netherlands
Email: education.chair@esbiomech.org
Aurélie Carlier is associate professor at the MERLN Institute in Maastricht, the Netherlands. She received her MSc in Biomedical Engineering in 2010 and her PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2014, both at the KU Leuven, Belgium. During her PhD she also visited the Systems Biology Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. Her research interests encompass the multiscale computational modelling of biological processes, with a particular focus on bone tissue engineering applications and cell-biomaterial interactions and using a range of data-driven to mechanistic modelling approaches. Aurélie Carlier is the author of more than 40 ISI indexed journal papers, 3 book chapters and over 90 full conference proceedings and abstracts. Her research achievements have been awarded with a number of distinctions, including the Student Award of the European Society of Biomechanics (ESB, 2012), the Reinhart Heinrich Doctoral Thesis Award by the European Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ESMTB, 2015) and the Best Doctoral Thesis Award by the European Society of Biomechanics (ESB, 2015). She has also been elected as member of theTissue Engineering Young Investigator Council (TEN YIC, 2016) and received a prestigious VENI career development grant (0.25 M€) from the Dutch Science Foundation. Besides her research, she is co-founder and vice-chair of FEM (Female Empowerment Maastricht University), a network to discuss and tackle gender issues.
Members:
Filippo Bertozzi
E4Sport Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Filippo Bertozzi is a postdoctoral research fellow in sports sciences and biomechanics at the E4Sport Lab of Politecnico di Milano. He also has the role of assistant lecturer for “Functional Evaluation” courses at Politecnico di Milano and Università Cattolica di Milano.
After graduating in Sport Sciences (2015) with a thesis on the “Influence of gait variability on physical activity levels in elderly women”, he obtained the Master’s degree (2017) in Sport Sciences and Preventive and Adapted Physical Activity from Università Cattolica di Milano with a thesis entitled “Influence of fatigue on non-contact injuries risk factors during repeated turns”. From October 2018 to December 2021, he has been enrolled in the Translational Medicine PhD Program of the University of Milan, primarily studying fatigue effects on lower limb biomechanics and producing a thesis entitled: “Towards a better understanding of the role of fatigue on ACL injury risk”. From January to August 2021, he also visited the Neuromuscular Biomechanics Laboratory of the Montana State University (USA) to study the interaction effect of cognitive performance and physical fatigue on the biomechanical risk factors for non-contact injuries. His current research focuses on human motion analysis, sports injury prevention and rehabilitation, exercise physiology, and functional evaluation.
He is an author of several papers in international peer-reviewed journals and abstracts presented in international congresses. He served as a reviewer for journals in the field of movement science and sports biomechanics. He is a full member of the European Society of Biomechanics, European College of Sport Science, and Italian Society of Exercise and Sport Sciences.
Chiara Dazzi
Computational Mechanobiology group, Julius Wolff Institute, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Chiara Dazzi received her bachelor degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2017 working on the mechanical characterization of scaffolds for tendon regeneration. She continued her studies at Polytechnic of Milan (Italy) completing in 2020 a master of science in Biomedical Engineering with a research project on the computational analysis of the tricuspid valve biomechanics. During her studies, Chiara developed a profound interest in Computational Biology and Computational Biomechanics. Since March 2021, Chiara has been a PhD candidate at Julius Wolff Institute of Charité Universitaetsmedizin Berlin (Germany) where she is developing her research project within the Computational Mechanobiology group. In particular, by means of multi-scale in silico models, she aims at investigating the mechano-regulation and the mechano-biological interplay of sprouting angiogenesis during bone fracture healing.
Dr. Ingmar Fleps
Orthopaedic & Development Biomechanics Laboratory, Boston University, USA
Ingmar Fleps is currently a postdoctoral associate in the Orthopaedic & Development Biomechanics Laboratory at Boston University. His main research interest is the development of experimental and computational approaches to study the interaction of soft and hard tissues in health and disease.
After obtaining a joint master’s degree in material science from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Technical University of Luleå in 2014, he moved to Switzerland where he obtained a Dr. Sc. from ETH Zürich in 2019. His thesis focused on experimental and computational models for femoral loading and injury risk during simulated sideways falls. After his doctoral studies he received a two-year postdoctoral fellowship to work on data-driven approach for hip fracture risk assessment at the Institute for Biomechanics at ETH Zürich. In spring 2021 he moved to Boston to join Professor Elise Morgan’s Orthopaedic & Development Biomechanics Laboratory to study the interaction between intervertebral discs and vertebral bones in the process of vertebral fracture.
Ingmar has been a member of the European Society of Biomechanics since 2015 and is also a member of the Swiss Society for Biomedical Engineering and the American Society of Biomechanics, as well as a reviewer for several journals related to bone biomechanics.
Laura Lafuente Gracia
Biomechanics section, Department Mechanical Engineering, KULeuven, Belgium
Laura Lafuente-Gracia graduated from the University of Zaragoza (Spain) with a Bachelor in Mathematics (2017) and a Master in Biomedical Engineering (2019). During her studies, she completed two stays abroad as an Erasmus student. For the first one, she went to the TU München in Germany and fell in love with the field of mathematical biology, which was reflected in her bachelor’s thesis “Mathematical study of the disease diffusion”. For the second stay abroad, she went to the KU Leuven in Belgium and wrote her master’s thesis “Where shall I go? The mechanosensing adventures of a computational single cell”. She is very enthusiastic about the field of biomedical engineering and therefore started a PhD in the group of Prof. Geris at the Biomechanics section of the KU Leuven. As PhD student, she investigates bone fracture healing with the help of computational models. She is also a member of Prometheus, the division of skeletal tissue engineering of KU Leuven, where she broadens her scope beyond the engineering perspective. With this idea in mind, she has joined the ESB Student Committee to further develop her insight into all facets of the biomedical field.
Gianluca Santesarti
Department of Civil Engineering and Computer Science, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
Gianluca is a PhD student in Bioengineering at the university of Rome Tor Vergata. His research topic is on computational modelling of 3D-extrusion bioprinting through CFD and FSI simulations guided by experimental results.
He received his bachelor’s degree in Energy Engineering in 2016 from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, with an experimental thesis on cruise control for electric vehicles. Then, he continued his study in Energy Engineering at the University of Bologna, where he focused on fluid dynamics and numerical methods by receiving the MSc with a thesis regarding multi-scale Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems with FEM simulations. Next, he completed the state examination for the industrial engineering qualification.
Gianluca is a member of the European Society of Biomechanics (ESB), EUROMECH and Italian associations, AIMETA, GNB, INdAM and now he is very enthusiastic to contribute to the ESB Student Committee activities.
Dr. Aurélie Levillain
Laboratory of biomechanics and impact mechanics, Univ Lyon-Univ Eiffel, Lyon, France
Aurélie Levillain is an assistant professor (Maître de conférences) at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (France), conducting her research at the laboratory of biomechanics and impact mechanics. After obtaining an engineering degree and a master degree in biomechanics from Ecole Centrale Lyon in 2013, she received her PhD degree in biomechanics in 2016. She then held two postdoctoral positions in the department of bioengineering at Imperial College London, before being awarded a Marie Sklodovska Curie fellowship in 2020 at Univ Lyon-Inserm. Her research interests include mechanical characterisation of biological tissue, finite element modelling for fracture prediction, and implant biomechanics. She is an author of 8 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and presented in international congresses, including the World Congress of Biomechanics in 2018 where she obtained an ESB travel award. She is also a reviewer for several journals in biomechanics.
Aurélie has been a member of the European Society of Biomechanics since 2016. She joined the scientific communication team led by Ilse Jonkers in 2022 and is very enthusiastic to be involved in the very diverse activities organised by the committee.
Dr. Sangita Swapnasrita
MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine, Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Sangita Swapnasrita is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the cell Biology-inspired Tissue Engineering department at Maastricht University where she is pursuing her research goal of developing sex-specific mathematical models of kidney and kidney replacement therapies. With a PhD from University of Bremen in making computational models of gas diffusion and adsorption in CO sensors, she switched fields to join the computational biology lab of Aurélie Carlier. She has recently obtained a Kolff+ grant to model a novel sorbent-assisted peritoneal device and will continue to work on personalisation of the treatment for dialysis patients. She is also a recipient of the MDR Young Talent Incentives award to look more at the sex-specific transport of solutes in kidney organoids with Prof. Anita Layton from University of Waterloo, Canada.
Sangita has been a member of the European Society of Biomechanics since 2021 and works for scientific communication. Together with Ilse Jonkers she organises the journal club and the PI interviews for ESB.
Dr. Andrada Pica
Research Group in Industrial Bioengineering at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome
Andrada Pica received the Bachelor’s Degree in Clinical Engineering in 2013 and the Master of Science Degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2016, both from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. In July 2021, she obtained the Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Management Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome, discussing a thesis entitled “Hierarchical 3D models of the mineralized collagen fibrils”. She is currently a Research Fellow affiliated with the Research Group in Industrial Bioengineering at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome. The research interest concerns the characterization of bone tissue, linking its complex hierarchical structure to tissue properties in the context of physiological and pathological conditions. Her work is based on the development of 3D numerical and finite element models of bone at different length scales. A particular focus is attributed to the analysis of bone nano- and micro-structure in healthy and pathological conditions, as osteoarthritis. Andrada is also involved in scientific collaborations with national and international research groups. She is member of the European Society of Biomechanics (2021) and the Italian National Group of Bioengineering (2020).
Alexandra Tits
Mechanics of Biological and Biosinpired Materials laboratory, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium
Alexandra Tits is a PhD candidate from the University of Liege (Belgium), where she obtained a Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2018. For her Master Thesis, she collaborated with the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (New-Zealand). During this research stay, she loved the interdisciplinary of her project and discovered a passion for biomechanics. In 2018, she received a grant from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research to carry on a PhD focusing on the morphological, material and mechanical investigation of the tendon-bone complex with multiple techniques. Her research involves many collaborations with national and international institutions including the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Osteology (Vienna, Austria) and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Potsdam, Germany).
Alexandra is also active in several doctoral associations. She has been the communication manager and secretary for the PhD community of the University of Liege for two years and she is the organization manager of a collective vegetable garden project (the “Pot’Ingé”) aiming to raise awareness on ecological issues. Since 2021, she is involved in the National Youngster Committee for Biomedical Engineering, and she is now thrilled to be part of the ESB student committee!
