Gunther Steenackers

Gunther Steenackers was born in Vilvoorde, Belgium, in January 1977. He received the M.Sc. degree of electro-mechanical engineering and the Ph.D. degree from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Ixelles, Belgium, in July 2000 and 2008, respectively. From 2000 to 2004, he worked as an Industrial Project Engineer for the company LMS International. In 2004, he rejoined VUB to perform Ph.D. Research in the Acoustics and Vibration Research Group. Since 2012, he has been a Full Professor with the University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, and a Guest Professor of Teaching Mechanics, Computer-Aided Engineering, and Finite Element Courses with VUB. Currently, he is supervising eight Ph.D. Students with a focus on IR thermography, nondestructive testing, FE modeling, and statistical shape modeling. Besides his full-time position at Antwerp University, he is as well-attached as a Guest Professor at VUB, University Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada, and a research collaborator on the OnDuty Project since the end of 2017. He is also a member of different national and international consortia (FLAG, SAMPE, NEXOR) with a focus on establishing IR thermography as an optical measurement technique in an industrial context. In 2020, he was promoted as a Full Professor and became the Director of the Electromechanics Department, Faculty of Applied Sciences, UAntwerp. The focus of his research is on the subject of experimental identification and optimization of mechanical systems, making use of regressive finite element models. His current research focuses on IR thermography measurements, finite element modeling, and design optimization techniques.