**About the Special Issue Editors**

**Stefano Mariani** received his M.S. degree (cum laude) in Civil Engineering in 1995 and Ph.D. degree in Structural Engineering in 1999 from the Polytechnic University of Milan. He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Milan. He was a research scholar at the Danish Technical University in 1997, Adjunct Professor at Penn State University in 2007, and Visiting Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in 2009. He serves on the Editorial Boards of *Algorithms, International Journal on Advances in Systems and Measurements, Inventions, Machines, Micro and Nanosystems, Micromachines*, and *Sensors*. He has been recipient of the Associazione Carlo Maddalena Prize for graduate students (1996), and of the Fondazione Confalonieri Prize for Ph.D. students (2000). His main research interests are in the reliability of MEMS that are subject to shocks and drops; structural health monitoring of composite structures through MEMS sensors; numerical simulations of ductile fracture in metals and of quasi-brittle fracture in heterogeneous and functionally graded materials; extended finite element methods; the calibration of constitutive models via extended and sigma-point Kalman filters; and multiscale solution methods for dynamic delamination in layered composites.

**Francesco Ciucci** is Associate Professor (with tenure) at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), where he also serves as Associate Director of the Building Energy Research Center (Guangzhou HKUST, China). Prof. Ciucci graduated cum laude from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and Ecole Centrale de Paris, France, with degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Science, respectively. He pursued his Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, USA, where he was supported by the prestigious Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship and Bechtel Fellowship. Prof. Ciucci conducted postdoctoral work at the Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical and Computational Methods for the Sciences of the University of Heidelberg, Germany. There, he was supported by a Heidelberg Graduate School Fellowship and obtained the prestigious Marie Curie Reintegration Grant. Prof. Ciucci has managed numerous research projects and has overseen 8 Ph.D. and 7 research MSc students who are now serving the engineering communities worldwide. Among them, 2 are teaching at research universities. Prof. Ciucci's current research centers around solid-state energy technologies, including materials used in high-temperature fuel cells and solid-state batteries. Prof. Ciucci has raised more than HKD 28 million (euro 3.2 million) in funding in the past 8 years and currently manages a group consisting of 13 postgraduate students and 4 postdoctoral scholars. His articles have been featured in many high-impact journals, including *Nature Chemistry, Advanced Energy Materials, and Chemical Reviews*.

**Dirk Lehmhus** joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials (IFAM) in 1998 following his diploma in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hanover. Having received his Ph.D. from the University of Bremen's Faculty of Production Engineering for studies on optimizing manufacturing and predominantly mechanical properties of aluminum foams produced according to the powder compact melting or Fraunhofer process, he took over the role of Managing Director of the University of Bremen's ISIS Sensorial Materials Scientific Centre, dedicated to the coordination of research activities in the area of material-integrated intelligent systems. In 2015, he was granted a scholarship for a short term lectureship at New York University by the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD. In January 2018, he re-joined Fraunhofer IFAM as Senior Scientist in the area of casting technology. Dr. Lehmhus serves on the Editorial Boards of Metals and Materials. His main research interests are in material-integrated intelligent systems, structural health monitoring, additive manufacturing, powder metallurgy, and metal casting technology.

**Thomas B. Messervey** has over 25 years of engineering, military, and business experience, which includes military service in the US Army Corps of Engineers, industrial experience with the Italian Engineering Company, D'Appolonia, teaching excellence at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and coaching services as the EU Facilitator for the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems program. He is CEO and co-founder of R2M Solution "Research to Market", which is an innovation and consulting company that acts as an accelerator for technology transfer that is mostly active in the fields of sustainability, construction, energy, the smart grid, and robotics. He also currently serves on the executive committee of Green Building Council Italia (GBC Italia). He has served as a reviewer and expert for the European Commission on various topics related to innovation and impact, and has served as a member and reviewer for various associations including the International Association of Bridge Maintenance and Safety (IABMAS), the International Association of Life Cycle Civil Engineering (IALCCE), the *International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering, Structure and Infrastructure Engineering*, and MDPI *Sensors*. He is passionate about leadership, mentorship, and the implementation of new value propositions that make growth and sustainability possible.

**Alberto Vallan** received his M.S. degree in Electronic Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in 1996 and Ph.D. degree in Electronic Instrumentation from the University of Brescia, Italy, in 2000. He is currently Associate Professor in Electrical and Electronic Measurements with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications of the Politecnico di Torino. From 2000 to present, he has been a lecturer in courses concerning Electronic Measurements and Sensors. His research interests are focused on the development and characterization of fiber optical sensors and measuring instruments for biomedical and industrial applications. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE/Instrumentation & Measurement Society.

**Stefan Bosse** studied physics at the University of Bremen. He was awarded his Ph.D./doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) in Physics in the year 2002 at the University of Bremen, where he also conducted his postdoctorate (Habilitation) and Venia Legendi in Computer Science in the year 2016. Since 2016, he has been teaching and researching as a Privatdozent at the University of Bremen, Department of Computer Science, and since 2018, he has been Interim Professor at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Faculty Computer Science, Institute of Software Technologies. His main research area is in distributed artificial intelligence in general and, in particular, information processing in massive parallel and distributed systems using agent-based approaches combined with machine learning and agent-based simulation. A broad range of fields of application and domains are addressed: Material Science, Materials Informatics, Smart Materials, IoT, Production Engineering, Social Science, Crowd Sensing, and Geo Science. He has conducted projects in the internationally recognized ISIS Scientific Centre for Intelligent Sensorial Materials, pushing interdisciplinary research and closing the gap between technology and computer science. He is currently Principle Investigator and Researcher at the DFG founded interegio and interdisciplinary Research Unit FOR3022 (Ultrasonic Monitoring of Fibre Metal Laminates Using Integrated Sensors), Subproject 4 (Automated Model-free Damage Diagnostic).

**Francisco Falcone** received his Telecommunication Engineering Degree in 1999 and his Ph.D. in Communication Engineering in 2005, both from the Universidad Publica de Navarra (UPNA) ´ in Spain. From February 1999 to April 2000, he was Microwave Commissioning Engineer at Siemens-Italtel, deploying microwave access systems. From May 2000 to December 2008, he was Radio Access Engineer at Telefonica M ´ oviles, performing radio network planning and optimization ´ tasks in mobile network deployment. As co-founding member, he served as Director of Tafco Metawireless, a spin-off company from UPNA from January until May 2009. In parallel, he was Assistant Lecturer in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Dept., UPNA, from February 2003 to May 2009. In June 2009, he became Associate Professor in the EE Dept., being Dept. Head from January 2012 until July 2018. From January 2018 to May 2018, he was Visiting Professor at the Kuwait College of Science and Technology in Kuwait. He is also affiliated with the Institute for Smart Cities (ISC) at UPNA, which hosts around 140 researchers, and is currently Head of the ICT section. His research interests are related to computational electromagnetics applied to analysis of complex electromagnetic scenarios, with a focus on the analysis, design, and implementation of heterogeneous wireless networks to enable context aware environments. He has participated in over 70 public and private funded projects. He has over 500 contributions in indexed international journals, book chapters and conference contributions. He is Senior Member IEEE. He has been awarded the CST 2003 and CST 2005 Best Paper Award, Ph.D. Award from the Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicacion (COIT) in2006, Doctoral Award UPNA, 2010, 1st Juan Gomez Pe ´ nalver Research ˜ Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain in 2010, XII Talgo Innovation Award 2012, IEEE 2014 Best Paper Award, 2014, ECSA-3 Best Paper award, 2016 and ECSA-4 Best Paper Award, 2017.
