Alejandro Cornejo Velázquez is a PhD Civil Engineer by the the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya since 2015. Additionally, he holds a Master in Ingeniería de Caminos, Canales y Puertos and a PhD in Structural Analysis by the same university since 2017 and 2020, respectively.

His first steps in hic scientific career started in 2016 at CIMNE within the framework of his Master thesis. In this work, an extensive validation and application of a novel coupled numerical methodology that combines the Finite Element Method and the Discrete Element Method. This formulation was used for simulating the onset, evolution, branching and merging of multi-fractures in solids.

Alejandro successfully developed his PhD at UPC-CIMNE with the research focused on fluid-structure interaction between free-surface flows and multi-fracturing solids. One of the tasks of the PhD involved the implementation (Python & C++) and validation of the proposed coupled FEM-DEM methodology inside the open-source Finite Element code Kratos-Multiphysics. Additionally, the aforementioned method was coupled with the well-known Particle Finite Element Method in order to be able to simulate FSI problems with special focus in risk and damage assessment of protective structures submitted to fluid loads.

He has been also participating in various research projects at CIMNE with a wide range of objectives, e.g. damage assessment of nuclear containment structures taking into account aging effects like stress relaxation and concrete creep, numerical modelling of fatigue processes in steel and composite materials, new composite materials for reinforced concrete structures and the application of the FEM-DEM methodology in mining and tunneling processes.

Alejandro is currently a postdoctoral researcher at CIMNE aiming his scientific efforts in the improvement of the FEM-DEM methodology for FSI, computational contact mechanics applied to industrial conforming processes and constitutive modelling of solids and composite materials (damage, plasticity, hyper-elasticity, viscoelasticity, fatigue, etc) within the framework of Kratos-Multiphysics (Python & C++).