Keynote Speakers

Prof. GUILLAUME HOUZEAUX, Barcelona Supercomputing Center

                                                                      Barcelona, Spain

High performance computing for organ-level biomechanics simulations

Short bio notes:

After a Master of Applied Science in CFD at Concordia University, he did is PhD in Domain Decomposition methods applied to CFD with Ramon Codina, at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona. He obtained the PhD degree in 2002 and during two years worked at the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) in the Building, Energy and Environment group. In 2004, he was granted the 'Ramon y Cajal' Spanish government contract to study indoor ventilation in buildings. Two years later, he joined the newly created Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) to start the CFD research line in the Department of Computer Applications in Science and Engineering.

Dr Houzeaux is leading, together with other two team leaders, a group of around 50 researchers whose main mission is to develop and apply the multi-physics parallel simulation platform ALYA. This code, part of the European PRACE benchmark suite, is an HPC-based tool adapted to run efficiently in large-scale parallel computers. This involves physical modelling, mathematical algorithms and code development and optimization, all driven by the objective of efficient use of parallel resources. This multidisciplinary group includes post-docs, PhD students and programming engineers, with main applications in biomechanics, aeronautics, renewable energies and smart cities. He has published around 60 papers in international journals and has been participating to numerous national and European projects (W2Plastics, PRACE, Sherloc cleansky, GrowSmarter, centres of excellence (EoCoE), but also contributed to industrial contracts (JyD, Iberdrola). He is currently collaborating with numerous international institutions: INRIA Bordeaux (France), Ecole Centrale de Paris (France), NCSA (USA), MCGill University (Canada), Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada), STFC (UK) and Imperial College (UK). He's also co-founder of Elem Biotech, a SaaS spin-off of BSC in the medical sector.

Prof. ÉRIC WAGNAC, École de Technologie Supérieure

                                                                 Montréal, Canada

Towards the future of football helmets exceeding highest protection standards

from customer specific design to 3D printing

Short bio notes:

Éric Wagnac is an Associate Professor in the Departement of Mechanical Engineering at École de technologie supérieure (Montreal, Canada). He has a PhD degree from both Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and Aix-Marseille University and is the co-founder of V2R Biomedical, a company specialized in guided surgery. Researcher at Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, his research interests are mostly focused on studying spine and head biomechanics in trauma situations, as well as designing protective and surgical devices. Since 2015, he is involved in the design of innovative helmets in sports, more specifically in the design, modeling and experimental characterization of helmet liners made of elastomeric foam and cellular architected structures. His research team, in close partnership with the Montreal-based company Kollide, were amongst the three winners of the 2021 edition of the NFL Helmet Challenge, an innovation challenge that aims to stimulate the development by experts, innovators and helmet manufacturers of a new helmet that outperforms, based on laboratory testing, all helmet models currently worn by NFL players.