Keynote Speakers
Martine Dubé - Recycling routes for thermoplastic composites pre-impregnated wastes
Martine Dubé is professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at École de technologie supérieure in Montréal, Canada and co-director of the Research Center for High Performance Polymer and Composite Systems (CREPEC), a strategic cluster comprising 80 researchers from the polymer and composite fields in the province of Québec. She leads a research group focussed on the development of manufacturing and joining processes for thermoplastic composites for applications in the space, aerospace and other industries. In 2021, she became the chairholder of the Marcelle Gauvreau Research Chair on Sustainable Composite Materials. The research chair activities include the development of recycling routes for thermoplastic composites production wastes. Before her appointment as a professor in 2011, she worked at Bombardier Aerospace where she contributed to the development of repair methods for composite structures. Professor Dubé holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from Polytechnique Montréal and a PhD from McGill University. She worked as a CNRS post-doctoral research fellow for two years at École Polytechnique in France.
Silvestre Taveira Pinho - Numerical simulation of very large composite structures
Silvestre Taveira Pinho is Deputy Head of the Department of Aeronautics, Airbus Chair in Composites, Professor in Mechanics of Composites and EPSRC Research fellow at Imperial College London. His group has developed various analytical and numerical models for failure of composites, some of which currently ship natively in both Abaqus and LS-Dyna. His group has also developed bio-inspired microstructures for composites which lead to an over fivefold increase in energy dissipation during failure. Silvestre was awarded in 2010 by the European Society for Composite Materials (ESCM) the prize for best young researcher in Composites active in Europe. Silvestre is a member of the Executive Council and Head of the Information Committee of the International Community for Composite Materials , and a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society Structures & Materials Specialist Committee. He also served as a member of the Council and of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Composite Materials from 2012 to 2022. Silvestre was awarded two distinct fellowships from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2014 and 2022). Earlier this year, Silvestre authored the chapter on aviation of the UK's NetZero All-Party Parliamentary Group Myth-busting report on NetZero.
Larry Ilcewicz- Certifying Innovative Composite Applications
Dr. Larry Ilcewicz is the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Chief Scientist and Technical Advisor for Composite Materials. He started FAA work in 1998 with many certification activities for transport aircraft, small airplanes, and rotorcraft. He also has experiences in accident investigations and service problems involving composites. These experiences helped Larry develop and execute an international plan for composite safety and certification initiatives, which involved work with industry, academia, and other government groups to establish regulatory guidance, training, and standardization. Such efforts continue to form a basis for FAA and industry aviation safety composite priorities for the future.
Larry came to the FAA from Boeing, where he worked 17 years on various programs in the commercial transport aircraft division, including support to 737, 757, 767 and 777 aircraft in various stages of development, production, and service. Larry was also principal investigator for NASA-funded research to develop composite design and manufacturing concepts for a wide-body transport fuselage in the 1990s. Boeing helped sponsor his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University. Larry has authored/co-authored more than 90 technical publications, including several FAA policy and guidance documents. He was co-chairman for Composite Materials Handbook 17, CMH-17, for more than 25 years. In 2013, he received the Presidential Rank Award and, in 2018, he received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Crichlow Trust Prize.