Michael Zaiser holds a Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany, and a Dr. habil. in theoretical physics from the University of Stuttgart. Before accepting his current position as Professor of Materials Simulation at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg he was Professor of Mechanics of Materials and Head of the Institute for Materials and Processes at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently a Distinguished Foreign Expert at Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China. His research focuses on microstructure-based modeling of mechanical properties of materials with emphasis on the use of statistical methods to deal with strongly disordered microstructures.
