Eleni Gerolymatou

I studied Applied Mathematics and Physics at the National Technical University of Athens and received my PhD in Geomaterials in 2011. After a post doc at the Politecnico di Milano and at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, I worked as an Associate Professor for Rock Mechanics at the Chalmers University of Technology from 2017 to 2021. From November 2021 I am leading the group on Geomechanics and multiphysical Systems at the Technical University of Clausthal as a full professor.

Research topics

The focal points of my research are the development of physically based constitutive laws, the experimental investigation of the mechanical and hydraulic response of soil and rock and the numerical simulation of coupled processes linked to the mechanics of geomaterials. I am especially interested in the derivation of the macroscopic behavior of geomaterials based on their microstructure and in the use of non-simple continua for bifurcation problems.

Why Open Geomechanics

The scientific publishing system in the field of Geomechanics presents two major defects. The first is that it creates barriers to knowledge, either requiring the authors or the readers to pay to enable access. The second is that the reviewing process is not fully transparent. Open Geomechanics provides radical answers to both: research is made openly available at no cost after a double blind review process, at the end of which reviews are made available as a companion to the article.

Statement of Interests

The vast majority of my research is or has been funded by public entities, such as the European Council, the Swedish Research Council and the German Ministry of Education. I have co-supervised students working with consulting companies in Geotechnical Engineering.