Alberto Di Renzo graduated in Chemical Engineering in 2000 and earned a PhD in Chemical and Materials Engineering in 2004 from the University of Calabria (Unical). After visits to various institutions in the UK, from 2005 he serves as Senior Lecturer in numerical methods and process dynamics and control at Unical. Research interests have ever since been in developing fundamental understanding and the building blocks of advanced DEM and DEM-CFD modelling. His main contributions have been in progressing frictional-elastic contact models, drag force with four-way coupling and heat transfer. Current application areas of interest are: fluid bed reactors for the polymer and energy industry and (bio)reactors for biomedical applications, pharmaceutical devices and food engineering.