TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2025

Dr. Federico París 
Professor of Continuous Media Mechanics and Structures Theory
University of Seville

Keynote Lecture: “Representativity of Composite Properties in the Design of Aeronautical Components”

Federico París earned his mechanical engineer degree from the University of Seville in 1976 and completed his Ph.D. at the Polytechnic University of Madrid in 1979, where he was awarded the university’s Distinguished Doctorate Prize. Since 1981, he has been professor in Continuum Mechanics and Structural Theory. He began his academic career at the Polytechnic University of Las Palmas and joined the Department of Continuum Mechanics at the University of Seville’s School of Engineering in 1982.

His international experience includes teaching at prestigious institutions such as the University of Oxford (UK), Virginia Tech (USA), and the Luleå Institute of Technology (Sweden), as well as conducting research at NASA’s Langley Research Center. He led the GERM Research Group, and along with fellow professor José Cañas Delgado, co-founded the spin-off company TEAMS within the GERM labs. He also served as Director of the School of Engineering at the University of Seville from 2002 to 2006.

Professor París has played a key role in advancing the field of materials and structural engineering. He served as President of the Spanish Association for Composite Materials (AEMAC) from 1999 to 2005 and has been President of the European Society for Composite Materials (ESCM) since 2014.

His career has been marked by a deep commitment to innovation and to strengthening collaboration between academia and industry.

TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2025

Dr. Gerardo Olivares
Director for the Advanced Virtual Engineering and Testing Laboratories (AVET)
National Institute for Aviation Research

Dr. Olivares is the Director for the Advanced Virtual Engineering and Testing Laboratories (AVET) at the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) at Wichita State University. He has over 30 years of experience in the research and application of Virtual Engineering methods in the aerospace and automotive industries. For the last nineteen years, Dr. Olivares has been the principal investigator in over four hundred research projects funded by various Government Agencies [FAA, NASA, ONR, Air Force, Army, NSF, and FTA] and industry partners worldwide. The focus of the research has been in the development and validation of Digital Engineering methods from conceptual design to certification by analysis for aerospace applications. Dr. Olivares holds a BS and MS degrees in Aerospace Engineering and a Ph.D. In Mechanical Engineering from Wichita State University.