Dr Athanasios Toumpis assesses the performance of metallic materials and components through experimental and numerical investigations. Scientific and engineering areas of interest include the thermomechanical deformation of materials in extreme conditions, additive manufacturing, advanced joining methods with a focus on solid state joining (such as friction stir welding and its variants), the tribological performance of components, and the relation between manufacturing methods/processing routes, microstructural evolution and resultant mechanical and other properties. Some examples of topics of interest: numerical and/or experimental investigation of a metallic alloy in specific processing or operating conditions of industrial relevance, optimisation studies of any of the above mentioned processes, failure investigation and/or optimisation of a real-world engineering challenge or product, etc. New ideas for such projects, or self-generated ones, that generally fall within the previously mentioned scientific areas will be discussed quite positively.