María Serrano Mesa studied civil engineering at the University of Granada, including a one-year exchange at RWTH Aachen. She completed her Master's degree at Technische Universität Berlin. Since the end of 2019, she has been working as a research assistant in the department of “Structural and Conceptual Design - Structural Concrete” under Prof. Schlaich at TU Berlin, focusing on CFRP reinforced (and prestressed) concrete. Her doctoral thesis investigates the bond behaviour of prestressed CFRP strands in concrete. 

Outside of academia, María was responsible for the structural design of the first skate park to incorporate CFRP elements. She was also involved in the experimental validation of the first sports hall using prestressed CFRP strands. At the fib PhD Symposium last year, she won first prize for the best presentation and paper for her analytical evaluation of the bond behaviour of pretensioned CFRP strands in concrete. She is currently finalising her PhD thesis entitled "Prestress Transfer of Pre-Tensioned CFRP Strands in Concrete". 

“When I started working on the numerical analysis of the bond behaviour of CFRP, I was inspired by Prof. Preinstorfer's thesis, so I was thrilled when he agreed to collaborate with me. Since I had already done an exchange during my bachelor's and master’s studies, I thought it would be a great opportunity to work on this final part of my PhD at TU Wien. From the very beginning, I felt very welcomed here, and I am learning a lot from the research group”. 

It is scientific dialog that moves us forward. We are happy to collaborate with you on that very interesting topic!