Yago Catalán is a Mechanical Engineer and has been working at ENCOPIM for the past four years. During this time, he has contributed as a Mechanical Designer to the development of test rigs for the automotive industry, focusing on the design and integration of testing machines for both passive and active safety applications.

Fan Hailong is an authoritative expert in China's intelligent connected vehicle safety assessment field, currently serving as General Manager of the Electronic Information Business Division at China Merchants Vehicle Test & Research Institute Co., Ltd. He led the R&D of the world's first automotive AI safety evaluation system (AI-STAR), pioneered the Automotive Intelligent Safety Assessment Protocol (AI-SAP) with a six-dimensional safety model, and China's first Automotive Intelligent Cockpit Assessment Protocol (AI-CAP) for cockpit-driving integration. He spearheaded the establishment of China's automotive industry's first EPD* (Environmental Product Declaration) platform, building a bridge for international mutual recognition of automotive life-cycle environmental footprints. His pioneering achievements have played a pivotal role in advancing the global intelligent connected vehicle assessment technology system.

Michal Kalinský works at TÜV SÜD Czech s.r.o., where he is a project manager for side-impact crash tests and a product developer. He graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at CTU and has recently completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at CTU in Prague. His extensive experience of numerical simulations and dynamic sled testing enables him to bridge the gap between computational models and practical testing, thereby contributing to the development of innovative methods in vehicle passive safety and testing technologies.

Dr. Thomas Kinsky completed his studies of automotive engineering at TU Dresden in 1991 and received a doctorate at TU Graz in 2015 in parallel to his job. After his studies Dr. Kinsky worked for TUV Rhineland and for a small medium-sized company before he changed to Opel in 1999. There he was responsible – last as a Senior Expert – for passive vehicle safety subjects and represented Opel in the discussion with authorities and associations. Since 2018 Dr. Kinsky is with Humanetics Europe.

Stefan Kirschbichler has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics of Graz University of Technology since 2008. Since January 2017 he is the teamleader of Occupant and VRU Safety group. He is working in the field of biomechanics, accident research and integrated safety. He has experience in project management of several funded projects with international and national projects.

Jan Christopher Kolb studied "Vehicle Systems Engineering" and "Mechanical Engineering and international Salesmanagement" before starting as a test engineer in the pedestrian protection division of Bertrandt GmbH in Ingolstadt in 2003. After brief stints as project engineer and project manager, he took over the "Passive Safety" team as team leader. From 2017 to 2022, he was a test manager and network manager at the CARISSMA research center (Center of Automotive Research and Integrated Safety Systems and Measurement Area), which is integrated into Ingolstadt Technical University (THI). Besides the overall supervision of the test laboratories, he did research in the field of VRU protection, automated driving and system development. From 2022 to 2024, Jan Christopher Kolb has worked for the Kistler Group as Business Driver ADAS/AV. Currently he is Head of Sales & Support at VEHICO GmbH.

Dr. Malte A. Kurfiss (born 1972, Hamburg) studied physics in Saarbrücken and Hamburg, completing a PhD in semiconductor and thin-film physics at the University of Hamburg in the Institute of Applied Physics, with research in nano-structured materials. In 2006 he joined YXLON International GmbH as Product Manager for X-ray sources and generators, later specializing in computed tomography. In 2011 he was appointed Director of Product Marketing at YXLON. Before joining Fraunhofer, he served as Director of Product Management, Marketing and Business Development at Allied Visions GmbH, a provider of industrial camera systems. Since 2015 he held the position as Head of the Crash Test Center at Fraunhofer EMI, focusing on high-speed in-situ X-ray imaging to advance automotive safety research. End of 2025, he has shifted toward strengthening industry–academic collaboration as a business developer at Fraunhofer EMI.

Lötzbeyer, Daniel is the Managing Partner of MAT Solutions GmbH. With his many years of experience in product development across various industries, he is a specialist team leader for the implementation of tailor-made solutions. His areas of expertise include industrial technology, airbag testing, and rail vehicles.

Andreas Mangold is Managing Director of Photron Deutschland GmbH - a subsidiary of the Japanese Photron Limited, a leading manufacturer of high-speed cameras. Mr. Mangold is a trained electronics engineer and has been working in the field of high-speed image analysis for over 15 years. For more than 6 years he has been responsible for the "Automotive" area throughout Europe at Photron, where he is the interface between end customers and the development team.

Steve Mareno will be presenting Vehicle Pitch Simulation – Data collection, target identification, and simulation. Steve has been with Instron for more than 15 years and has been part of the catapult team since his involvement with the first successful pitching system in 2002. Since that time he has been a part of the development team for each iteration of the design including the latest generation high speed pitching systems.  

Andreas Schachtner is the Director of Global Testing at ZF LIFETEC. In this role, he oversees testing activities at over 15 ZF LIFETEC facilities around the world. The graduate mechanical engineer has over 30 years of experience in occupant safety. He has system expertise in the domains of prototype development, inflators, airbags and seat belts, and encourages his global team to pursue a continuous learning approach based on centralized data management.

Dr. Olaf Schädler studied systems engineering at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with Opel. He then worked for several years as a project manager at Opel, where he was responsible for projects relating to steering systems, radar systems and control units, as well as research projects on automated driving. During this time, he completed his doctorate on the controllability of interacting driver assistance systems at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and the Technical University of Berlin. From 2018 to 2025, he worked at Continental; in his last position, he was responsible for consumer protection, accident research and regulation of driver assistance systems and automated driving worldwide. He has been with Certivity since 2025. Certivity offers an AI-powered platform for efficient and cross-functional management of regulatory technical requirements.

University of Alberta MBA Over 20 years experience with pressure imaging applications and sensor technology

Andreas Schuller holds a degree (Dipl.-Ing. Univ.) in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich (1995-2002). He started his career at AUDI AG as a Safety Engineer in Restraint System Application (2002-2004), then worked at SEAT S.A. as a Safety Engineer for Airbag Integration (2005). He returned to AUDI AG, advancing through roles including Project Leader Vehicle Safety (2006-2011), Head of Development for Restraint Systems & Frontal Airbags (2011-2012), and Head of Development Airbag Systems (2012-2013). He held several senior positions until becoming Senior Director of Development for Passive Safety Functions & Vehicle Safety Project Coordination at AUDI AG (2022-present), after serving as Director of Development Vehicle Safety at SAIC-VOLKSWAGEN in China (2020-2022).

Dr. Soni is working as Product Manager at Humanetics Innovative Solutions, Inc., leading the development and management of advanced digital products that drive innovation in automotive safety and biomechanics. With over 20 years of experience in occupant safety research and product development, he has participated in the development and validation of several Human Body Models (HBMs) that are now widely used across the industry. His expertise spans HBM applications in restraint system design, with a focus on developing and implementing virtual testing solutions to improve crashworthiness and occupant protection. Passionate about innovation in digital safety solutions, Dr. Soni is committed to integrating cutting-edge technologies into occupant protection strategies.

Philipp Toelke is general manager of the Seattle Safety Germany GmbH which is a 100% daughter company of Seattle Safety LLC in Seattle. Philipp is responsible for the European market and works very close with the engineering in Seattle at the development and market introduction of new Seattle Safety products. Philipp has a diploma degree in Engineering from Braunschweig University (Germany) and he worked in the field of vehicle safety for the last 17 years.

After starting his career at Siemens VDO in 2001, Diego joined AVL Software & Functions in 2009 being responsible for Diesel Control-SW and later on for Combustion Control-SW. Since 2021 he took over responsibility for the Test Engineering department that runs several test facilities including high voltage testbeds for powertrain electronics and e-machines as well as the AVL Sensor Lab (Weather Hall) in Roding/Bavaria.