Dr Zafer Kazancı is the Aerospace Engineering Programme Director and Director of the Advanced Composites Research Group (ACRG) at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. He has a wide research history on the behaviour of composite structures under extreme loads and specialises in impact and blast loading. His research expertise also encompasses mechanical metamaterials (auxetics), crash and crush analysis, bird-strike certification, crashworthiness and ballistic impact.

In 2018, Dr Kazancı was awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellowship with Bombardier Aerospace where he was leading a programme of technology transfer to serve specific modelling and design capability needs of the industry partner. Dr Kazancı has also led (PI) and worked as co-investigator (CI) on several projects with collaborating international industrial partners, institutions/universities and governmental bodies.