• How is it living in a different country?

Moving is always a challenge, especially moving to a different country. Luckily, the help of the professors and of my new colleagues at Ecole des Mines made the transition relatively painless. I did not know France before, so it has been interesting to experience how things work here.

Speaking the local language is always an advantage, maybe even more so in France. Fortunately, I studied French at school for some time, which has turned out to be a good decision after all these years. I am still very far from fluency, but I would like to gradually change that.

• What motivated you to be in the FiBreMoD project?

Unlike most of the FiBreMoD researchers, I did not focus on composites before starting the PhD. My background is in computational mechanics and I was looking for a project which could let me continue to work in this field. At the same time, I wanted to be part of a project with a close connection to industry. FiBreMoD meets both conditions, and so I am very happy to be part of it. These two things, going deep into your specific topic, while always thinking of the practical side, makes this project very attractive.

• What are your thoughts and first impressions about the whole FiBreMoD project?

The force of FiBreMoD is that it gets together a relatively big group of people to work on the subject of composite failure modelling. This allows us to simultaneously approach the subject from different perspectives. It gives us access to the expertise of the other PhD students as well as more experienced researchers from all partner institutions. Meeting these people has been one of the most rewarding experiences in the project so far.

Another advantage of all Marie Curie PhD programmes is a busy training schedule. Personally, I very much enjoyed the recent training in composites repairs at ACRATS.

• Any dream for your future you would like to share?

I would like to find an interesting job that would allow me to fully apply the skills developed during the PhD. And maybe own a yacht.

• If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?

Teleportation. It would save me a lot of money on plane tickets.