Stavros Syngellakis (PhD, Princeton University) has almost forty years of research and teaching experience in solid mechanics and structural engineering. After 32 years as an academic member of the University of Southampton, Dr Syngellakis joined the Wessex Institute of Technology in October 2011 as an Associate Professor. He has published over 100 papers on advanced applications of exact and approximate analytical techniques to a wide range of structural engineering and material technology problems. His current research interests include fatigue crack growth in layered systems; indentation fracture; buckling of laminated plates; projectile penetration mechanics; damage tolerance of composites under high-rate loads. Dr Syngellakis supervised 20 PhD and 1 MPhil programmes to completion and participated in various industry-sponsored research programmes and engineering projects. He is a member of the editorial board of two international journals and a reviewer for numerous others. He has been a member of the scientific advisory committee of, and made invited contributions to, many Boundary Element and other materials-related conferences.