Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Christian Mittelstedt studied civil engineering at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, where he received his engineering diploma in 1999. He defended his doctoral thesis about the mechanics of composite structures in 2005 at the University of Siegen, Germany, and joined the aerospace industry in northern Germany afterwards where he worked as research engineer from 2006 - 2011, and as a technical leader for research and development from 2011 - 2016. During his time in industry he defended his habilitation thesis about stability problems in thin-walled composite structures in 2012 at Technical University of Darmstadt. In 2016 he was appointed as full professor and as the head of the Institute for Lightweight Construction and Design (KLuB) at the department of Mechanical Engineering of the Technical University of Darmstadt.