Umut Durak leads the Avionics Systems Research Group in the Institute of Flight Systems at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). He is also an adjunct Professor of Aeronautical Informatics in the Informatics Institute at the Clausthal University of Technology. His research interests focus on the engineering of software-intensive airborne systems. He has published five books and more than 100 papers in various conference proceedings and journals. He is an Associate Fellow and the Co-Chair of the Software Technical Committee at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and an Executive Board Member of the German simulation association Arbeitsgemeinschaft Simulation (ASIM).