Ionut Dragos Moldovan

Ionut Dragos Moldovan is an Associate Professor at Lusófona University's Faculty of Engineering in Lisbon and a researcher at CERIS Research Centre (University of Lisbon). He earned his PhD from Universidade de Lisboa in 2008, specializing in Hybrid-Trefftz Finite Elements for elastodynamic analysis of porous media.

His research focuses on:

• Development of hybrid-Trefftz finite elements for geomechanics, structural mechanics, and acoustics
• Advanced structural health monitoring techniques for civil infrastructure
• Machine learning applications for damage detection in bridges
• Computational modeling of soil dynamics and wave propagation

His publications predominantly concentrate on computational geomechanics (38%), structural health monitoring innovations (32%), machine learning applications in infrastructure (25%), and experimental mechanics (5%). Recent work shows increasing focus on climate adaptation of infrastructure and transfer learning techniques.

Awards & Recognition:

• Best paper award (2025) for contributions to vibration analysis of civil structures

Research Leadership: Principal Investigator of the INTENT project (2023-2026) funded by Portuguese Science Foundation, developing intelligent road monitoring systems using embedded sensors. Currently supervises 4 PhD candidates across Portugal, Brazil, and Romania. Developed FreeHyTE - the first open-source computational platform for hybrid-Trefftz finite element analysis.