Afonso José Carvalho e Silva

Afonso J. C. Silva obtained a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Aveiro in 2022. He works in areas of engineering sciences and technologies with a main emphasis on Mechanical Engineering and Biomechanics. Throughout his master's program, he demonstrated proficiency in several areas, including engineering drawing, mechanical behaviour of materials, computational modelling, and numerical simulation, specifically in the finite element method. He completed his dissertation in Biomechanics, titled "Development of a numerical model of the human neck," where he acquired individual skills in utilizing new programs such as 3D Slicer, MeshMixer, Hypermesh, and Abaqus. He also gained new insights into biomechanics, including the kinematics and behaviour of the various components of the human neck.

He was granted a research fellowship in the BAFTHA (Biomechanical Analysis of Female Head Trauma) research project, where he continued to develop the cervical model created during his master's dissertation. During this period, he had the opportunity to participate in numerous international conferences, including IRCOBI 2022 – International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury, where he served as a staff member. Most notably, he participated in ESBiomech23 – 28th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics as first author of a poster presentation titled “Development of a Female Finite Element Model of the Cervical Spine”, which helped disseminate his research findings.

As primary author, he has published several articles in international journals. The first, titled "Development of a Finite Element Model of the Cervical Spine and Validation of a Functional Spinal Unit," was published in Applied Sciences. Subsequently, his article "Improvement and Validation of a Female Finite Element Model of the Cervical Spine" was published in the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials.

He is currently pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Aveiro. During 2024–2025, he was involved in a research project within the scope of a PRR (Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência) initiative, inserted in the ILLIANCE agenda (Agenda Mobilizadora para a Inovação Empresarial), where he worked directly with cork and cork composites for hydrogen applications with the aim of enhancing safety. At the end of 2025, he concluded his participation in the PRR project to begin a PhD scholarship funded by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia). Within this scholarship, he returned to biomechanics research in the project titled “Biomechanical study of degenerative spinal pathologies and its effects on whiplash kinematics – DESPATCH.”