Panel

Frank POPIELAS, Managing Partner and Co-founder | SMS_ThinkTank

Mr. Popielas is currently Managing Partner and Co-founder of SMS_ThinkTank. He has over 20 years of global experience in engineering and R&D product and materials development, IP management, as well as testing, with a specific focus on the development and application of simulation tools, and the establishment of the required supporting infrastructure at Dana Holding Corporation. His expertise includes technology exchange and transfer, business assessments in engineering and manufacturing focusing on the virtual aspect, as well as process development and democratization of its application in this area. In Addition, Frank is a member of the NAFEMS Americas Steering Committee since 2011 and became founding chairman of the joint System Modeling and Simulation Working Group (SMSWG) between NAFEMS and INCOSE in 2013 and continues his leading role in the SMSWG as Co-chair since August 2016. He joined the COE organization as volunteer in 2017 and is section chair within the Engineering, Analysis and Simulation Division responsible for CAE and SPDM (Simulation Process and Data Management). His activities and achievements include over 35 granted patents globally on the areas of sealing, shielding and fuel cells, over 40 publications globally covering all the mentioned areas with the focus on the past decade on virtual engineering, its tools and practices, presentations and speaking engagements at conferences and various companies, interviews, case studies and teaching engagements. He is also a member of the Jinfiniti Precision Medicine Advisory Board since September 2020 and was previously an Advisory Board Member of Quantiphi. Mr. Popielas received his MSc degree in Engineering, majoring in Theoretical Physics from the Technological University (MIS&A – Institute for Steels and Alloys) in Moscow, Russia. Frank is fluent in English, German and Russian.

Pascal PANCRACE, Project Manager | Renault

As Project Manager, on vehicle perimeter acting on several physical branch (Crash, Aerodynamic, Thermal…) on multiples components (metals, plastics), Mr P.Pancrace conduct new developments of the activity from CAE computation to global optimisation and design of experiments.

Pascal has international experience as a local Togliatti Engineering team Manager. His carrier went through several aspects of car body developments, as BIW CAE engineer, testing department manager for doors and openings and Engine CAE specialist.

Initial skills were grabbed in the Compiegne Technical University, French engineering school known as UTC, graduated in 1994. Pascal was trained as Mechanical and Production Engineering.

Manohar PRABHU, CATIA Mechanical Industry Process Consult Director | Dassault Systèmes

Manohar PRABHU is Director of Technical Sales, CATIA Concept Engineering at Dassault Systèmes. PRABHU has more than 20 years of experience working with various automotive OEMs and engineering companies globally in engineering and management. He is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) and Technical University of Berlin. 

PRABHU started his professional career at SFE GmbH, an SMB in Berlin, Germany, as an Applications Engineer to become the VP for the North American business and later the Managing Director of SFE. After its acquisition by Dassault Systèmes, PRABHU successfully managed the merger and integration of SFE GmbH with Dassault Systèmes. 

Behrooz SHAHIDI, Manager, Global Vehicle Simulation Integration | Ford

Behrooz Shahidi is the Manager of Ford Motor Company CAE Integration Department for North America and Europe vehicle programs. His department has responsibilities of leading Ford CAE disciplines, which includes vehicle safety, vehicle durability, vehicle NVH, Thermal System Engineering, vehicle weight optimization, through all phases of product development – from Architecture concept development thru tooling release, testing, and Job 1.

Behrooz has over 20 years’  management experience at Ford, leveraging CAE to achieve optimized body and vehicle designs that best balances attribute tradeoffs and performance targets. He has been a core part of Ford’s truck, SUV, car, and future EV vehicle programs. Vehicles he supported include Ford Explorer, F-Series, Ranger, EcoSport, Escape, Fusion, Expedition, Transit, Taurus, Focus, Mustang, Flex.

Behrooz had a long standing association with, Body Structures CAE, where he was supervising the evolution of several vehicle programs. He was leading a team responsible for evaluation of Body Stiffness, NVH and Durability attributes. Since beginning of 2016, Behrooz is the Manager for CAE Integration, within Digital innovation group at Ford, where he plans to leverage heavily on a CAE driven design process.
 
Behrooz is credited for successfully bringing Dassault SFE into Ford as a key tool to develop vehicle concepts and utilize its powerful features and capabilities to quickly create vehicle concepts and its variants for study. Together, with CATIA and Simulia suite of tools (Abaqus, iSIGHT, Tosca), Behrooz pioneered and implemented a process to use SFE’s abilities to help Ford select a single architecture concept for product design execution. Behrooz is currently exploring leveraging SIMULA for Ford’s new MBSE activities.

Behrooz has Professional Certificates in Architecture and Systems Engineering, Data Science and Big Data Analytics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has a Masters in Aerospace Engineering from University of Michigan Ann Arbor and MBA from Michigan State. Behrooz has several publications and US Patents in ASME.