MIhai Marasteanu
Dr. Mihai O. Marasteanu is the MSES/Miles Kersten Professor in the Department of Civil Environmental and Geo- Engineering at The University of Minnesota. He received Ph.D. and MS degrees from The Pennsylvania State University, where he was member of the SHRP research team who developed the Performance Grade (PG) specifications for asphalt binders.
For the past 25 years, he has led the asphalt pavements research program at The University of Minnesota. He was principal investigator of two major national pooled fund studies on low temperature cracking, that represented a significant step towards using fracture tests and fracture mechanics to select cracking resistant materials and to predict pavement performance. His research group has developed simple experimental methods, that could be easily adopted for routine testing, to obtain relevant creep and strength properties of asphalt binders and mixtures by testing miniature beams.
While continuing to pursue traditional areas of pavement engineering, his recent research has mainly focused on innovation in pavement materials and technologies, nondestructive testing, machine learning, pavement–environment interactions, and new asset management tools for pavements applications. Dr. Marasteanu is co-author of a US patent on asphalt-graphite mixtures. He has published over 150 papers in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings and over 45 research reports. He is an honorary editor for the Road Materials and Pavement Design journal.
Mayca Rubio-Gamez
Dr. Mª Carmen Rubio-Gámez is a professor in the Department of Construction Engineering at the University of Granada (UGR) and the director of the LabIC.UGR research group. Her expertise lies in developing sustainable and smart materials for transport infrastructures, with a focus on enhancing asphalt pavement durability, minimizing carbon footprint, and mitigating climate change impacts through innovative road solutions. Prof. Rubio-Gámez maintains strong collaborative ties with international research institutions, industry partners, and organizations, emphasizing the translation of research into practical applications. She is also an active member of international technical committees in associations such as Rilem, EATA, ISAP. Her work has been recognized, highlighting the “Juan Antonio Fernández del Campo International Road Innovation Award”, the “Medal of Honor awarded by the Spanish Road Association” and the “Science and Innovation Award” granted by the Andalusian government in Spain.
Michael Kaliske
Dr. Michael Kaliske is Full Professor at Technische Universität Dresden, where he has been Director of the Institute for Structural Analysis since 2006.
He got his Diploma in Civil Engineering from the University of Hannover in 1990 and his Ph.D. and Habilitation in Structural Mechanics in 1995 and 1999, respectively, from the same University.
Afterwards, he joined Continental, where he was Head of the Mechanics and Simulation Development Department (2001-2002). After that, he was Director of the Institute of Structural Mechanics at the University of Leipzig from 2002 to 2008. He has been Secretary of the International Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (GAMM) since 2009 and he Vice-President of the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM) since 2022. He was Vice-President (2013-2016) and President (2017-2020) of the German Association for Computational Mechanics (GACM).
Currently, he is also a member of the Senate of the German Research Foundation (DFG).
