Area Chair Profiles
Alessandro Carbonari – Area Chair for Data Acquisition, Analysis, Sensing, Simulation, & Resilience
Alessandro Carbonari is an Associate Professor at Università Politecnica delle Marche (Ancona, Italy). He has been carrying out research on intelligent and automated systems for construction, advanced systems for construction site management, active systems for optimal energy management of buildings, reduced-order modelling for prediction of the dynamic behaviour of buildings. Since 2004 he has joined several EU funded projects as a researcher, C-TIDE (“Changeable Thermal Inertia Dry Enclosures”), SEAM4US (“Sustainable energy management for underground stations”) MARTE Project (“MArche Regione TEchnical assistance for healthcare buildings Energy retrofit”), ENCORE (“ENergy aware BIM Cloud Platform in a COst-effective Building REnovation Context) and projects funded by the local Government, PRIN project “Technologies and framework for real-time safety management in construction sites” and PRIN project “A Distributed Digital Collaboration Framework for Small and Medium-Sized Engineering and Construction Enterprises”. He was appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction (IAARC – www.iaarc.org ) and as Chair of the “Data Sensing and Analysis” Technical Committee of the European Council on Computing in Construction – EC3 (https://ec-3.org/ ).
He currently serves as the chair of the EC3 Data Sensing and Analysis Technical Committee
Pieter Pauwels – Area Chair for Data Integration Methods
Pieter Pauwels is an Associate Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Department of the Built Environment. He previously worked at the Dept. of Architecture and Urban Planning at Ghent University (2008-2019). His work and interests are in information system support for the building life-cycle (architectural design, construction, building operation). With a lot of experience and knowledge in computer science and software development, he is involved in a number of industry-oriented research projects on topics affiliated to AI in construction, design thinking, Building Information Modelling (BIM), Linked Building Data (LBD), Linked Data in Architecture and Construction (LDAC), and Semantic Web technologies.
He currently serves as the treasurer for the EC3 Board of Directors.
Dimitrios Rovas – Area Chair for Energy Modelling & Monitoring
Dimitrios Rovas is currently a Lecturer in Building Simulation and Optimisation, at The Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources at University College London. His research interests are in the areas of building physics, smart buildings, design and simulation of building energy management systems, building simulation, building information modelling and development of middleware and data integration platforms for data access and analytical processing of sensor information. He was the academic manager of the UK Centre for Moisture in Buildings. Currently, he is the programme leader for the MSc in Smart Buildings and Digital Engineering.
Dr. Rovas received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens; he received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the area of reduced-basis and finite-element methods, working under the supervision of Prof. Anthony T. Patera. He was research associate at the Laboratory for Numerical Analysis of the University of Paris VI, France (UPMC). He held Assistant Professor positions in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, and in the Department of Production Engineering and Management at the Technical University of Crete, Greece. From 2013-2015 he was a member of the Systems Integration Group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics in Germany.
He currently serves as the secretary for the EC3 Board of Directors.
André Borrmann – Area Chair for Product and Process Modelling
André Borrmann is a full professor for computational modeling and simulation at TU Munich. Prof. Borrmann conducts research in the field of computer-aided development of engineering products, with particular emphasis on applications for the built environment. Current research topics range from advancing building information modeling methods to the topological analysis of 3D product models and the generation of digital twins for existing facilities through to the simulation of construction processes and pedestrian dynamics.e
After studying civil engineering at Bauhaus University Weimar, Professor Borrmann completed his Ph.D. at the TUM Chair of Computation in Engineering in cooperation with Siemens AG, receiving his Doctorate in 2007. He continued working as a research group leader at TUM and later became Associate Professor for Computational Modeling and Simulation in 2011, before he was appointed as Full Professor in 2012. Since 2013, he has been Speaker of the Leonhard Obermeyer Center – the TUM Center of Digital Methods for the Built Environment. He is editorial board member of the renowned journal Advanced Engineering Informatics and is a member of the steering committee of the European Group for Intelligent Computing in Engineering. Apart from his academic engagement, he is advising the German government concerning its BIM implementation roadmap and is actively supporting the construction industry’s shift towards the adoption of advanced digital technology. Related to this, he is pushing forward the international standardization activities of buildingSMART.
He currently serves as a member of the EC3 Modelling & Standards Technical Committee.
Eleni Papadonikolaki – Area Chair for Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology
Eleni Papadonikolaki is an Associate Professor in Digital Innovation and Management at the Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management at University College London (UCL). Dr. Papadonikolaki is teaching at postgraduate and executive levels and leads the newly-launched MSc in Digital Engineering Management (DEM).
Her research interests lie at the intersection of management, social science, and digital economy. She is a steering board member and part-time researcher at the Construction Blockchain Consortium (CBC). She is a Partner at Digital Outlook.
Prior to joining academia Eleni worked as architect and design manager on a number of complex, international and varying-scale projects in Greece, the Netherlands, Oman and United Arab Emirates. She is an alumna of TU Delft, Netherlands and NTUA, Greece.
Dr. Laura Maftei – Area Chair for Virtual and Augmented Reality
Laura Maftei is a lecturer at the University of Reading. Her research draws a broader trajectory around the use and application of digital technology to design and construction.
It focuses on the use, integration and implications of digital technology (virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), building information modelling (BIM) etc.) across construction design practice. It also focuses on how the technology may be incorporated into teaching while accounting for innovative teaching methods.
Dr. Maftei completed her PhD on the use of digital technology for design practice within the School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading, where she continues to be involved in both research and teaching around the use of digital technologies in the practices of built environment professionals.
Angelo Ciribini – Area Chair for Education, Policy, and Standardisation
Angelo Ciribini is full professor of technical building at the University of Brescia. Prof. Ciribini is president of the Italian Society of Science, Technology and Engineering of Architecture (ISTeA). Member of the EU BIM Task Group at the European Commission; member of the workshops on BIM of UNI, CEN and ISO. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of Terotec, AICQ Costruzioni, CTE, and SAIE. Academic member of the PhD in Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering at the Politecnico of Milan and of the Groupe de Travail 4 of the Projet National MINnD (Modélisation des INformations INteropérables pour les INfrastructures Durables).
He was Research Associate at the ITC CNR and Researcher at the Politecnico of Turin. He has been employed as a full professor and Associate Professor since 2002. Since 2005, he has been Full Professor of Technical Building at the University of Brescia, Engineering Area. He is the author of numerous scientific publications and founding member of the European Association on Public-Private Partnership.
He currently serves as the vice-chair for the EC3 Education Technical Committee.