The Lineup

Andy Alter began his professional career in 2016 as a test engineer in the crash test department at ACTS GmbH & Co. KG after completing his master’s degree at RWTH Aachen University. In 2018, he moved to TÜV Rheinland Kraftfahrt GmbH, where he has since worked as a type approval engineer in the areas of passive safety and multi-stage type approval. He has been a team leader in the multi-stage type approval department since 2021. Since fall 2022, he has been responsible for pedestrian protection regulations at TÜV Rheinland Kraftfahrt GmbH.

Michael Ditthardt holds a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart. After completing his degree, he worked for nearly two years as a simulation engineer specializing in high-speed crash simulations, focusing on passive safety in the automotive industry. Since 2024, he has been a Ph.D. student at Mercedes-Benz, researching active human body models with a particular focus on pedestrian protection. As part of the publicly funded CARpulse project, his work involves investigating muscle-driven movements in Ansys Hans HBM and analyzing their impact on pedestrian safety.

Andre Eggers is a researcher at BASt (German Federal Highway and Transport Research Institute) since 2006 working in the area of biomechanics, evaluation of dummies, human models and virtual testing. He studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Hamburg and Biomedical Engineering at Wayne State University. 2013 he completed his doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin. He contributed to several European research projects like IMVITER, THORAX, ASSESS, SENIORS and OSCCAR. He is representing BASt in Euro NCAP working groups related to injury criteria and virtual testing.

Benjamin Härtel studied automotive engineering in Dresden and subsequently earned his doctorate at the Technical University of Freiberg. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Automotive Engineering at HTW Dresden since 2017. Since 2018, he has served as a project manager in the field of vehicle safety research there.

Adrian Hellmann received a Master's Degree in Mechanical and Process Engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt and a „Diplôme Ingenieur Géneraliste“ from Ecole Centrale de Lyon. In 2015 he joined the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in Bergisch Gladbach where he works for the Section "Active Vehicle Safety" on the development and implementation of test scenarios for active safety within the legal framework as well as for consumer protection organizations such as Euro NCAP.

Björn Hohage graduated as Dipl. math. in mathematics at Clausthal University of Technology. In 2007, he joined AUDI AG as a developer in the occupant simulation side protection in vehicle safety. Since 2015, he has been responsible for the topic of dummy technology there. In this context, he also took over the technical representation in various working groups on these topics at ACEA, DIN and ISO for AUDI AG and has been chairman of the DIN working group on dummy and impactor technology since 2023.

After several years of occupation at CITROËN Luxemburg Peter Leßmann is working since 1998 on pedestrian safety testing at BGS. As technical head of the component test facilities of the German Federal Highway Research Institute BASt, Mr. Leßmann and his team is responsible for the technical preparation and realization of the homologation and Euro NCAP pedestrian testing. He contributes on several international working groups, amongst others the Euro NCAP technical working group pedestrian safety and the flexible pedestrian legform impactor technical evaluation group Flex-TEG of the GRSP/IGPS.

Abayomi Otubushin studied mechanical engineering at Middlesex University (UK) where his final project focussed on child safety in cars. He then joined the Accident Research Unit at Loughborough reconstructing real car crashes, identifying injury sources and making recommendations to manufacturers and legislators. That led to his PhD at Loughborough University, where he optimised steel structures for dynamic impact using finite element simulation (now common practice). He joined the BMW Group passive safety department in 1997 to develop pedestrian protection from initial concepts to series production. From 2014 to 2020 he moved to the BMW Brussels office as Senior Manager. There he applied his technical expertise and integrative communication to complex EU policy dossiers ranging from artificial intelligence, through sustainable mobility to tyre-labelling. In 2023 he joined logos public affairs as a senior adviser and also advises the SCART Institute on EU policy and consensus-building.

Yuanjin Pei holds a Master Degree from Wuhan University of Technology in China. He took part in an exchange programme in Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. He has been working at CATARC in the field of Pedestrian Protection for 8 years, first as a CAE engineer and currently as the Technical Expert for testing methodology and standard research. He is a leader of the domestic working group for the investigation of testing feasibility of aPLI, the clearance of protection cable and windscreen evaluation method, continuously supporting ISO, C-NCAP and homologation by extensive experience and huge amounts of data.

Volker Sander has been head of the Vehicle Safety Department of ADAC, which includes active safety, passive safety and accident research, since 2010. Before that, from 1999-2007 he was in charge of the construction of ADAC’s crash test lab as a team manager. From 2007-2010 he led the Passive Safety Department of ADAC. At Euro NCAP he is a member of the Board of Directors and chairman of the frontal impact working group. In addition to that he is member of the side impact working group, the technical working group and the ratings group of Euro NCAP. He is also lecturer for vehicle safety at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich.

Holger Staack studied mechanical engineering with a focus on lightweight construction and plastics technology at the Technical University of Munich. He then obtained his doctorate in engineering from the Chair of Lightweight Design at the Technical University of Munich. His dissertation, entitled 'Experimental characterization and parametric simulation of plastic components in partner protection,' dealt with the simulative failure modeling of plastics in pedestrian protection development. Since 2016, he has been working in pedestrian protection development at AUDI AG in Ingolstadt.

Dany Tapigue studied mechanical engineering at Aachen University of Applied Sciences and focused intensively on pedestrian protection even during his studies. As part of his thesis in 2008, he developed a tool for the automatic positioning of impactors for CAE simulations. Since 2009, he has worked as a development engineer for passive pedestrian protection at Ford-Werke GmbH in Cologne, where he supports conceptual design. In his new role as a technical specialist for passive pedestrian protection, he has been overseeing cross-carline projects at Ford since 2025 and represents the company in external working groups at VDA, ACEA, and OICA.

Boris Terfurth completed his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree at the University of Wuppertal in 2019. He then served a year of military service at the Bundeswehr’s Operational Communications Center in Mayen. Starting in 2021, he worked as a test engineer at BGS Böhme & Gehring GmbH in the field of active vehicle safety. His primary focus was on supporting the Federal Highway and Transport Research Institute (BASt) in conducting tests for the consumer protection organization EURO NCAP. Since May 2026, Boris Terfurth has been an employee in the Active Vehicle Safety and Driver Assistance Systems Division of the Federal Highway and Transport Research Institute.

Rafael Tucci graduated from the Universidad de la República (Uruguay) in 2012 and worked in energy and energy efficiency before focusing on road safety. As the Technical Coordinator for Latin NCAP and Global NCAP since 2016, he has worked in all areas related to NCAP, from development and updates of testing protocols to inspections and general program planning. He has also provided technical and safety supervision in events for the promotion of vehicular safety technologies at a global and regional level (Stop The Crash Partnership). 

Jan Wilsmann graduated from the TU Braunschweig as a mechanical engineer. Within the scope of his final thesis in 2008 he already dealt with the subject of pedestrian protection and worked directly afterwards as a test engineer in this field. He has been working for BMW AG since 2012 and has been working there in the department "Concepts Integral Safety" since 2015. In his current function, Mr. Wilsmann is responsible for the conceptual design of pedestrian protection in several projects. Since mid-2016, he has also been responsible for pedestrian and cyclist protection. In this capacity, he also took over the technical representation in various working groups on these topics at VDA, ACEA, and ISO for BMW AG.

Oliver Zander studied Safety Engineering at the University of Wuppertal and started his career as Safety Engineer at the JCI European Headquarters in Burscheid. Since 2002 he has worked as a scientist at the Federal Highway and Transport Research Institute (BASt), where since 2009 he has been Deputy Head of the Section Passive Vehicle Safety, Biomechanics. His main responsibilities are pedestrian protection (amongst others german representative of the GRSP Informal Group DPPS, EEVC Working Group 17 “Pedestrian Safety”, and the Euro NCAP Technical Working Groups “Passive Safety” and “Pedestrian Protection”), the Euro NCAP crash and pedestrian testing and European Research Projects w.r.t. passive vehicle safety.