From the 6th to the 10th of September, the city of Halle (Saale) in Germany hosted the NUMDIFF-16 conference. During the week, 14 plenary lectures were held, including one from Prof. B. Owren, a PI of THREAD from NTNU, who presented a plenary lecture on "Deep learning as optimal control problems with applications to mechanical systems". There was also a contributed paper from Prof. M. Arnold, PI of THREAD from MLU, entitled "Multistep DAE integrators on Lie groups".
On Tuesday 7th and Thursday 9th, two Young Researchers Minisymposia took place. The first, "THREAD - Interaction of beam like structures in 3D world" was organized by Narges Mohammadi, ESR7, Konstantina Ntarladima, ESR8, and Jan Tomec, ESR9, with the cooperation of Gordan Jelenić, PI from URFCE. The latter, "THREAD - Geometric numeric integration" was organized by Andrea Leone, ESR4, Ergys Çokaj, ESR5, and Martina Stavole, ESR10, with the collaboration of Sigrid Leyendecker, PI from FAU. In the Minisymposia, some ESRs presented: Sudhanva Kusuma Chandrashekhara, ESR 14 ("Computational aspects of the velocity based elements in post-buckling analysis of beams and frames"), Mohammad Ali Saadat, ESR 6 ("Investigation of the role of frictional contact interactions in the mechanical response of spiral strands using 1D finite strain beam model"), Davide Manfredo, ESR 11 ("Modeling of inelastic effects in composite cables by means of Hysteresis operators"), Marielle Debeurre, ESR 13 ("Efficient nonlinear modeling of highly flexible beam structures using geometrically exact beam models"), and Denise Tumiotto, ESR 1 ("Numerical investigation of stability of coarse grid discretisations for dissipative systems"). These Minisymposia have been exciting, challenging and formative experiences for both the presenters and the organisers.
On Wednesday 8th, the session on gender awareness "A MOMENTUM FOR INTEGRATING GENDER IN STEM? New EU standards for gender equality and the gender dimension in research (and how to rise to the challenge)" was held by Maxime Forest, gender trainer and expert at Yellow Window. The online special session was open to everybody at the conference.
Finally, after more than a year of online training and conferences, during this occasion, it was possible to have social interaction with other scientists. It was a great opportunity during the conference as well as during the social events, like the excursion to UNESCO World Heritage site Naumburg, to meet and talk both with more experienced researchers and with other PhD students with similar experiences and interests. We would like to thank again all the local organizers at MLU for the great experience!
Contributed by Denise Tumiotto, ESR 1, Andrea Leone, ESR 4, Ergys Çokaj, ESR 5, Narges Mohammadi, ESR 7, Konstantina Ntarladima, ESR 8, Davide Manfredo, ESR 11