Speakers & Chairmen

Andrés Aparicio is Senior Manager of ADAS and Connected and Automated Vehicles at Applus IDIADA. After coursing a masters degree on mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, he joined IDIADA in 2005. He has always been involved in the field of active and passive safety, both offering development services for industrial partners and participating in R&D projects, such as APROSYS, ASSESS and AsPeCSS. Since May 2015, he coordinates the PROSPECTs project, funded by the EC and dealing with active safety for vulnerable road users. He also  participates in the Euro NCAP working groups for safety assist features and has been involved in the development of the new AEB and LSS test protocols.

Tony Franke studied mechanical engineering with a focus on automotive engineering at the Technical University of Dresden until 2014. From 2017 to 2021, he led projects in the field of brake and chassis control systems for various manufacturers as a Lead Engineer at Bertrandt. Since October 2021, he has been responsible for ADAS Validation as a Team and Project Manager at Bertrandt, focusing on the holistic implementation and validation of driver assistance systems.

Kai Golowko has been working in the area of vehicle safety since 1999. He started his career as a test engineer for passive safety at ACTS. Since 2003 he has been working as senior engineer for occupant safety and pedestrian protection. Since 2005 he has managed the department vehicle safety at Bertrandt in Gaimersheim. He has also been responsible for active and passive vehicle safety for the Bertrandt Group since 2017.

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.

James Jackson is a specialist in automotive human factors and ergonomics. Following from studying human factors design at Loughborough University, he spent the first part of his career working in OEM product development focussing on vehicle usability and cabin design. He joined IDIADA in 2018 and now leads human factors activities, managing user centred design and testing. This involves responsibilities for work alongside industry partners concerning safety and mobility of transportation users, with driver behaviour and condition being of central focus. For Euro NCAP James is a member of the working groups for Occupant Status Monitoring and Human Factors / Human Machine Interaction.

Nils Katzorke received the B.A. degree in Transportation and Logistics Management from the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences Braunschweig/Wolfenbuettel in 2016, the MBE in Business Engineering from the Steinbeis University Berlin in 2018 and the DBA degree in business administration from the Prague University of Economics and Business in 2023 for his dissertation “Effective Test Infrastructure Design in the Context of Autonomous Driving”. From 2016 to 2018, he was project coordinator for the construction of Mercedes-Benz AG’s proving ground in Immendingen, Germany. Since 2018 he is responsible for further proving ground development with the Site Management Immendingen at Mercedes-Benz AG. His research interests include the development of test infrastructure, intelligent transportation systems and innovation management.

Kornel Kis graduated from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in 2015 as an electrical engineer and he also holds an MBA degree since 2023. Since 2017, he is working at Robert Bosch Kft. on automated driving and data-driven engineering topics. He is primarily focused on the application of data-driven engineering and the utilization of AI and modern machine learning methods in the automotive industry. Currently, he is working as product owner of an innovation project called DroneTruth, which aims to greatly simplify high-precision data collection and simulation of ADAS testing scenarios.

Emmeram Klotz is head of testing and validation within the TÜV SÜD Global Homologation Service. He studied aerospace technologies at the Technical University of Munich and afterwards started his career in the automotive industry. In nearly 20 years of work in various positions he gained comprehensive experience in automotive software development and testing. In recent years he focused on the new testing methods needed for safeguarding autonomous vehicles like scenario-based testing and the application of virtual methods.

Felix Koksch studied Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University Dresden. He is the DEKRA expert for ADAS and AD Testing, he is involved in their reseach programs and in the LAURIN Project for digital test automation of the DEKRA Lausitzring

After graduating from the University of Applied Science in Munich with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2012, Tobias Mangstl started as a specialist for new measurement technology concepts for passive safety at the BMW Group in Munich. One year later the focus changed to Active Safety to develop new test and measurement methods for the validation of Active Safety functions. In 2017, he moved to the area of Integral Safety Concepts as a specialist for developing Autonomous Emergency Braking Systems. Since the end of 2023, he is responsible for the strategic orientation of new BMW Group vehicles regarding Active Safety functions.

Andreas Rigling completed his studies as Dipl. -Ing. (FH) Automotive Engineering at the Munich University of Applied Sciences in 2009. Since 2009 he has been working at the ADAC Technik Zentrum as project manager vehicle safety and consumer protection and is responsible for the projects and tests of active safety in the field of vehicle safety. As an ADAC representative he is involved in Euro NCAP working groups and active safety committees. Since 2015 he has been a lecturer at the Munich University of Applied Sciences in the subject "Vehicle Safety & Homologation". In July 2022, he became head of Testcener Mobility and Active Vehicle Safety.

Philipp Rosenberger is co-founder and CEO of Persival GmbH, which supports sensor manufacturers and OEMs in the specification, development and validation of perception sensor models. He recently finished his PhD thesis on "Metrics for Specification, Validation, and Uncertainty Prediction for Credibility in Simulation of Active Perception Sensor Systems". Until the end of 2022, he has been working for six years as a research assistant at the Institute of Automotive Engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt under the supervision of Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Hermann Winner. In the European project "ENABLE-S3" he led the work package for simulation and stimulation and in the German project "PEGASUS" he was responsible for the development and validation of sensor models. Recently, he was involved in the German projects "SET Level" and "Verification & Validation Methods" to continue his work on model development and validation. He is also a founding member and part of the Change Control Board of the ASAM OSI standard. Together with his research group at TUDa FZD, he founded the PerCollECT initiative to collect and provide perception sensor cause-effect chains in a tree-like ontology. Furthermore, he is an active contributor to the open source perception sensor models of the asc(s e.V. - ENVITED Open Source Model & Simulation Library.

Andrea Steinmüller studied mechanical engineering at the University in Magdeburg until 2013 and graduated with a degree. She wrote her thesis at IAV GmbH in Gifhorn After that she started working there. Since 2013, Andrea Steinmüller has been working on the development of driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles. In 2016, she successfully completed her team leader training and led her team professionally. In October 2023, she joined to Bertrandt as a Team Manager. Here team is responsible for testing driver assistance systems and error management.

Lorenzo Uccello is a Ph.D. student at Politecnico di Milano. He received his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, Ground Vehicles, in 2023. He is working at DriSMi, the dynamic driving simulator of Politecnico di Milano. His research focuses on Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Automated Driving (AD) technologies, spanning diverse areas, ranging from communication protocols and cooperative driving to sensor fusion and simulation. He is exploring the effect of the human factor, proactively modifying the simulation environment's performance and leveraging state-of-the-art sensors like EEG, ECG, and SPR to analyze human-machine interaction. Currently, he is developing new validation procedures for Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) in collaboration with CSI S.p.A., particularly focusing on drowsiness and distraction.      

Thomas Unger studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Dresden from 2000-2006 and graduated with a degree in automotive engineering. As a student, he worked as part of the GIDAS project, where he assisted in the collection and recording of accident data, photogrammetric accident site surveys, and reconstruction of pedestrian accidents. From 2005 to 2018, he managed the ADAC accident research at the Technical Center Landsberg am Lech. Since July 2018, he is head of data analysis and simulation in Verkehrsunfallforschung an der TU Dresden GmbH.