Pedro P. Camanho is a professor at the department of mechanical engineering of the University of Porto. His main research interests are the mechanics of deformation and fracture of polymer composite materials, and new concepts for advanced composite materials for aerospace applications such as hybrid, variable stiffness and ultra-thin composites. Professor Camanho has been a visiting scientist at NASA-Langley Research Center since 2000, was a visiting scientist at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and has coordinated several research projects funded by the European Space Agency, Airbus, NASA, Daimler AG, Aernnova, European Union and US Air Force. He was the recipient of the 2006 NASA H.J.E. Reid Award for Outstanding Scientific Paper, the 2005 Young Researcher in Applied and Computational Mechanics Award from the Portuguese Association of Theoretical, Applied and Computational Mechanics, and the 2005-2009 Engineering Fracture Mechanics Most Cited Articles Award. He has published over 70 papers in international peer reviewed journals and is a member of the Council of the European Mechanics Society (EUROMECH). Stephen R. Hallett is Professor in Composite Structures in the Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science at the University of Bristol, UK. One of his main research interests is the development of physically based damage models for composite materials and their deployment for new and challenging applications. He has worked with on research projects for many of the major aerospace companies and is Technical Director for the Rolls-Royce Composites University Technology Centre at the University of Bristol. He has published over 70 scientific papers in international peer reviewed journals.