Richard Schussnig
Graz University of Technology
Institute of Biomechanics
Stremayrgasse 16/2
8010 Graz, Austria
Phone: 0316-873-35504
Phone (overseas): ++43-316-873-35504
E-mail:
Biography
Education
| 1/18 – 12/22: | Ph.D. Civil Engineering Sciences and Structural Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Austria (with distinction) |
| 10/15 – 6/17: | M.Sc. Civil Engineering Sciences and Structural Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Austria (with distinction) |
| 10/12 – 9/15: | B.Sc. Civil Engineering Sciences with Environment and Construction Management, Graz University of Technology, Austria |
| 9/03 – 6/11: | Graduation certificate from High School – BG/BRG Stainach, Austria (with distinction) |
Professional Appointments
| Since 10/25: | Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oden Institute, University of Texas at Austin, United States, and the Institute of Biomechanics, Graz University of Technology, Austria |
| 1/24 – 9/25: | Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Mathematics, Chair of Applied Numerics, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany |
| 5/18 – 2/24: | Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Mathematics, Chair of High-Performance Scientific Computing, University of Augsburg, Germany |
| 10/17 – 4/18: | Research Project and University Assistant at the Institute of Structural Analysis, Graz University of Technology, Austria |
| 10/15 – 6/17: | Student Research Assistant at the Institute of Structural Analysis, Graz University of Technology, Austria |
Awards and Honors
| 9/25: | Award-winning mentee in the ASciNA (Austrian Scientists in North America) mentoring program |
| 10/23: | Awarded member of the GAMM Juniors; a selected group of young researchers and members of GAMM (Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics) |
| 6/23: | Finalist of the ECCOMAS PhD Olympiad 2023 at the ECCOMAS Young Investigator's Conference 2023 |
| 3/23: | Dr.-Klaus-Körper-Preis 2023 awarded by GAMM in recognition for excellent doctoral theses in applied mathematics and mechanics |
| 2/23: | CEACM Young Researcher Award 2022 for the best PhD thesis 2022, awarded by the Central European Association for Computational Mechanics for outstanding research in the field of computational mechanics |
| 10/17 – 12/17: | Research fellowship (PI T.-P. Fries) granted by the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy |
| 12/16: | Amann Award 2016 and 2017 for doctoral students, awarded by the Amann Foundation in recognition of outstanding achievements in the field of structural analysis |
| 10/16: | Merit scholarship for the academic year 2015/16 of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Graz University of Technology |
| 12/15: | Amann Award 2015 for undergraduate students, awarded by the Amann Foundation in recognition of outstanding achievements in the field of structural analysis |
Publications
Biographical Sketch
Richard Schussnig, born in 1993 in Rottenmann, Austria, completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in civil engineering with a focus on structural engineering from Graz University of Technology. He then joined the LEAD Project “Mechanics, Modeling, and Simulation of Aortic Dissection”, a consortium led by Prof. Gerhard A. Holzapfel. This experience sparked his interest in biomechanics, computational engineering, and numerical mathematics. In December 2022, Richard defended his thesis entitled “Generalised Newtonian Fluids in Cardiovascular Fluid–Structure Interaction,” thus receiving his doctorate in civil engineering sciences.
In January 2023, Richard joined the group of Prof. Martin Kronbichler, the principal developer of deal.II and recipient of the 2025 SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering. Their joint work focuses on high-performance computing in computational medicine, in particular on matrix-free implementations of finite element methods at exascale for cardiovascular applications. Richard joined the group at the University of Augsburg and relocated to Ruhr University Bochum in January 2024, where he remained until September 2025. There, he contributed to the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking project dealii-X: Exascale Framework for Digital Twins of the Human Body as part of the project management team, while also supporting the PDExa project, which focused on optimized software for solving partial differential equations on exascale computing systems.
Richard has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship by the European Research Council for the “VascularROM” project. This project brings him to the Institute of Biomechanics at Graz University of Technology, starting with an 18-month research stay at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. Under the supervision of Professors Karen Willcox, Thomas J. R. Hughes, and Gerhard A. Holzapfel, the project aims to advance computational medicine by integrating model order reduction and uncertainty quantification techniques with high-performance computing and computational biomechanics of the cardiovascular system.