My research area is known as Computational Mechanics. I focus on free boundary problems, i.e. problems where part of or the whole boundary is unknown. For example, I have worked on problems involving topological changes or relatively complex geometries, such as crack propagation, delamination, biofilm growth, cutting in soft tissue. Within this field, I concentrate particularly on:

• Method development (enriched/extended finite elements, meshfree methods, smooth strain finite elements) to reduce the mesh generation burden when treating complex or evolving geometries/topologies
• A posteriori error estimation, aiming at controlling the approximation error during simulations and thus focusing the computational effort where it is really required
• Isogeometric analysis with boundary elements, aiming at simplifying the link between Computer Aided Design and Numerical Analysis (idea from the paper of TJR Hughes in 2005)
• Academic research/industrial applications: bridging the gap (porting novel methods to industrial codes, real-world applications of computational mechanics and novel method development)