Prof. Verena Maier-Kiener

Montanuniversität Leoben — Austria

Verena Maier-Kiener is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science at Montanuniversität Leoben. She earned her PhD degree from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, where she focused on developing advanced nanoindentation methods to locally analyze thermally activated deformation behavior. Her current research is dedicated to micro- and nanomechanical testing, with an emphasis on developing advanced testing protocols for nanoindentation. She applies these methods to high-performance materials, conducting experiments under realistic, application-relevant conditions.

Title: Linking Nanoscale Phase Transformations to High-Temperature Mechanical Behavior

Abstract: This talk explores phase transformations and high-temperature deformation mechanisms revealed by advanced nanoindentation. A novel unloading contact-pressure method combined with CSM is used to resolve pressure-induced phase transitions in silicon, with results validated by Raman spectroscopy. Complementary high-temperature nanoindentation shows a transition from phase-transformation-dominated deformation to dislocation-controlled plasticity between 300 °C and 400 °C, with further changes at higher temperatures. Extensions to Cu–Sn alloys, supported by in-situ SEM heating and HE-XRD, highlight the interplay between phase formation and mechanical response at elevated temperatures.

Dr. Brad L. Boyce

Sandia National Laboratories — USA

Dr. Boyce is a Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and a Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Boyce received the B.S. degree from Michigan Technological University in 1996 in Metallurgical Engineering and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1998 and 2001 from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Boyce joined the technical staff at Sandia in 2001 where his research interests lie in micromechanisms of deformation and failure. He has published over 200 peer reviewed articles and holds 6 U.S. patents on topics such as microsystems reliability, nanoindentation, fracture in structural alloys, weld metallurgy, and fatigue mechanisms. Dr. Boyce is a past recipient of the Hertz Foundation fellowship, the J. Keith Brimacombe Medal, and the Marcus A. Grossman Young Author award. In 2023, he served as president of TMS, The Minerals Metals and Materials Society, and has been selected to serve as president of AIME, the American Institute of Metals, Mining, and Petroleum Engineering in 2027.

Title: Mitigating fatigue failure at the nanoscale

Abstract: Fatigue in conventional metals initiates through persistent slip bands, but this mechanism is suppressed in nanocrystalline alloys with grains below ~100 nm. Crack nucleation occurs only after cyclic, room-temperature grain growth, as confirmed by synchrotron XRD, in-situ TEM and simulations. By designing alloys with enhanced resistance to grain coarsening, fatigue damage can be delayed dramatically. Early tests show no detectable damage after 10⁹–10¹⁰ cycles at stress amplitudes above 1 GPa, surpassing the fatigue performance of all known structural metals.

Prof. Thomas Pardoen

UCLouvain — Belgium

Thomas Pardoen is Full Professor at the École Polytechnique de Louvain and UCLouvain’s Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering. He chairs the Scientific Council of SCK CEN, is vice chair of the Centre Terre et Pierre (CTP), serves on the board of the Von Karman Institute (VKI), and represents Belgium at the Euratom Science and Technical Committee and the Global Nuclear Forum (NEA/OECD). After earning an engineering degree (1994), a master in philosophy (1996), and a PhD (1998) at UCLouvain, followed by postdoctoral work at Harvard, he joined the faculty in 2000. His research covers nano- to macro-mechanics, multiscale deformation and fracture, and the design of new materials and coatings for applications in nuclear, aeronautics, microsystems, construction and circular technologies. He has supervised 60+ PhD students and 30+ postdocs, published over 300 papers and 5 patents, and received major distinctions including the Grand Prix Alcan (2011), a Francqui Chair (2015), the SF2M Grande Médaille (2023), and Euromech Fellowship (2015).

Title: Fracture toughness at nanoscale: experimental challenges and physical meaning

Abstract: Fracture mechanics at the nanoscale poses major challenges due to the need for sharp pre-cracks, controlled loading and precise crack-length measurements. Recent MEMS-based on-chip cracking studies on Al₂O₃, graphene, tungsten and Al₂O₃/Al nanolaminates reveal key issues such as initiation vs propagation toughness, thickness effects, residual stresses, mixed-mode loading and ageing/irradiation. These findings raise fundamental questions about the meaning and transferability of nanoscale toughness. The method’s strengths and limitations will be compared with tensile testing on supported films and nanoindentation-induced cracking.

Prof. Nathan Mara

University of Minnesota — USA

Prof. Nathan Mara joined the CEMS faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2017 after 12 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, where he served as co-director of the Institute for Materials Science and as Thrust Leader for Nanoscale Electronics and Mechanics. His research focuses on nanoscale structure–property relationships and mechanical behavior under extreme environments, including high temperature, high strain rate and irradiation. He has published ~180 peer-reviewed papers, chaired the TMS Nanomechanical Materials Behavior Committee (2013–2015), and received major distinctions such as the TMS Young Leader Award (2012), the LANL Distinguished Mentor Award (2010), the International Journal of Plasticity Young Investigator Award (2017), and the 2023 TMS Brimacombe Medal. He is past chair of the Minnesota ASM chapter (2024–2025) and currently serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Materials Science and Engineering program at UMN.

Title: Structure-Mechanical Property Correlations in Pharmaceutical Crystals

Abstract: Instrumented nanoindentation enables rapid, small-volume mechanical testing of pharmaceutical single crystals, but current brittleness-index metrics capture only limited aspects of fracture behaviour. We present an integrated approach combining quasistatic nanoindentation and high-strain-rate LIPIT experiments to probe deformation and fracture across conditions relevant to milling and tabletability. Multiple APIs are analysed via SEM, AFM, optical microscopy and XRD, clarifying how plasticity and fracture compete as a function of crystal structure and chemistry.

Dr. Julien Guénolé

CNRS — France

Julien Guénolé is a computational scientist and research group leader at CNRS, working at the interface of physics, mechanics, and materials science. His expertise includes high-performance computing, large-scale data pipelines, atomistic modelling, irradiation damage, and mechanical behaviour of materials. He has broad experience in leading interdisciplinary computational research.

Title: Atomic-Scale Informed Dislocation Density Fields for Interface-Dominated Nanomechanics

Abstract: This presentation introduces a new atomistic-to-continuum crossover scheme for modelling plasticity in crystalline materials. Using elastic transformation tensors derived from atomistic configurations, the approach transfers dislocation-level information into a micromechanical FDM model solved via FFT. It captures dislocations, grain boundaries, solute effects and their interactions, demonstrated for Cu, Al, Mg and Ti. Machine-learning prediction of interface characteristics is also explored.

Prof. Marco Sebastiani

Università degli Studi Roma Tre — Italy

Marco Sebastiani is Associate Professor of Materials Science at Università degli Studi Roma Tre. His work lies in surface engineering, thin-film synthesis, nanoscale mechanical characterisation, and residual-stress assessment. He pioneered novel small-scale methods — including FIB-DIC and pillar-splitting techniques — for evaluating residual stress and fracture toughness in coatings and micro-devices. He coordinated multiple large European and national research projects (Horizon Europe, H2020, FP7, PRIN), serves as editor for Materials & Design, and contributes to the European Materials Characterisation Council (EMCC).

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Dr. Jakob König

KAI Competence Center — Austria

Jakob König (Dr.mont., Dipl.-Ing.) is a mechanical engineer and data-science researcher. He earned his PhD at the University of Leoben with work on Hyper-Resolution Image Mosaics (HRIM) for automated mine-shaft inspection, including a study on large-scale image mosaics in Computers in Industry. At KAI (Infineon), he develops reproducible cloud-native workflows on AWS and designs metadata frameworks enabling FAIR data across heterogeneous scientific domains. His recent work includes deploying NOMAD OASIS at scale, harmonising consortium metadata (e.g., All2GaN), and preparing open-science compliant datasets. He has built multidimensional CPS time-series analyses exceeding 70 TB, evaluated wafer-bow metrology algorithms, and taught data science for engineers.

Title: Bridging Industry and Academia: A Practical Approach to FAIR Data Management

Abstract: This presentation outlines a practical framework for managing heterogeneous, multi-domain data in EU-funded projects, developed within the All2GaN initiative. It shows how metadata harmonisation and the adoption of NOMAD/NOMAD Oasis enable FAIR-compliant data handling, reproducibility, and secure sharing across industrial and academic partners. Key challenges—non-uniform metadata, filename-encoded context and non-searchable data formats—are illustrated together with the schema-based solutions implemented. The talk highlights how these tools improve dataset discoverability, interoperability and long-term value for future research.

Dr. Claus O. W. Trost

Austrian Academy of Sciences — Austria

Claus is working as a principal investigator at the Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science. Additionally, he is one of the coordinators of the cross-disciplinary machine learning platform at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, MLA2S (https://www.oeaw.ac.at/mla2s/mla2s-thematic-platform). He holds a PhD (2023) in materials science from Montanuniversität Leoben (Chair of Materials Physics), focusing on the boundary between experiments, finite element simulations and machine learning. For one of his works on nanoindentation and machine learning, he received the Best Paper Award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Division of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences) in 2023. Currently, he holds an APART-MINT fellowship to study self-healing thin films using various synchrotron approaches.

Title: Using explainable machine learning to learn from nanoindentation mapping – Should we use more features?

Abstract: Nanoindentation has become a rapid method for mechanical property characterisation, enabling easy collection of large datasets. Elastic Modulus and Hardness maps are commonly used to visualise this data, allowing property extraction when material constituents differ significantly. When they do not, deconvolution is required, often achieved through unsupervised machine learning methods such as k-means. Typically, clustering relies only on Elastic Modulus and Hardness, raising the question: why have micromechanical features, which describe the full indentation curve despite past efforts in dimensional analysis, been overlooked? Using a curated High-Speed Steel dataset of 3300 human-labelled indents (zenodo.org/records/15639082), this talk demonstrates that incorporating such features enables effective classification and clustering of complex maps and provides deeper insights through explainable supervised models based on cooperative game theory.