Speakers & Chairmen

Ms. Leyre Benito Cia studied Industrial Engineering at the "Universidad Pública de Navarra – UpNA" (Spain) from 2005 to 2011. Her thesis was on "Investigation of mass transport through membranes using the CFD method" as part of a research project in cooperation with Volkswagen AG at the TU Braunschweig. Since 2011 she works at GNS mbH first in crash simulation and since 2016 in the Generator4 management team.

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.

Christian Kurzböck studied Mechanical engineering at Graz University of Technology from 2004 to 2012. Since 2011 he works as Development Engineer at Virtual Vehicle in Graz. His fields of work are simulation methods for reinforced and unreinforced materials, pedestrian protection and occupant protection.

Yu Liu, senior engineer, is the director of Advanced Safety Research department at CAERI. He received the Ph.D. degree from Hunan University, China, in 2022. From 2018 to 2022, he served as a visiting scholar at the Vehicle Safety Technology Center of CAERI. Currently, he serves as the team leader for the future planning and technical research of the C-IASI Protocols. His research focus on traffic accident in-depth study, safety test and evaluation standards, test tools and equipment, and design of AI-driven safety protection strategies. He has led over 10 projects and applied for more than 60 patents. He has also led the development and application of projects such as the AC-HUMs human body model, AC-MPDB barrier, reclined seat safety assessment, vehicle-pedestrian active and passive integrated safety assessment, and AC-THORACX chest module design.

Liu Peng is currently responsible for the test management and result release of C-NCAP, as well as organizing experts inside and outside CATARC to carry out research on the 2027 edition of the new protocol.

Dr. Masahiro Okamura received a M.D. in 2000 and a PhD in 2004 both from Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. He has more than 15 years’ experience as crash and safety engineer with several crash codes in the automotive industry. Currently his main obligation at JSOL is business development in Digital twin, Digital homologation, and data-driven product development. His research fields are in Robust design process, Test-Simulation integration, Digital twin, Digital homologation.

Director and Professor Andre Seeck has been Vice President of the Federal Highway and Transport Research Institute (BASt) since April 2022, where he heads the Vehicle Technology division. In this position he is responsible for the preparation of European Safety Regulations. Furthermore he represents the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport in the Board of Directors of Euro NCAP and he is the chairman of the strategy group on automated driving and of the rating system. These positions enable him to gain deep insight into current and future developments in vehicle safety. In 2017 NHTSA awarded him the U. S. Government Special Award of Appreciation.

Takahiko Sugiyama is a research engineer for injury biomechanics at the Volkswagen Group Research. After completion his master’s in mechanical engineering in 2006, he joined Toyota Central R&D labs., Inc. and worked at Biomechanics Laboratory until 2012. Then, he moved to Volkswagen and has been working at Volkswagen Group Research since 2015. Through his research activity, he has been engaging in the projects to develop an active FE-HBM to investigate occupant’s physiological reaction during Pre-Crash phase and its influence to injury outcome.