Kostas Danas holds a tenured position as a CNRS Director of Research and Professor at the Solid Mechanics Laboratory (LMS), Department of Mechanics at Ecole Polytechnique. He is currently (2023-2024) a visiting professor at the ELyTMaX laboratry of CNRS and Tohoku university in Sendai, Japan. He was born and raised in Kozani, Greece and studied at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece where he received his Dipl. Ing. in Mechanical Engineering (2003) with highest honors (rank 1st). He received his M.Sc (2004) from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. (2008) from the Ecole Polytechique, France and the University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA. After the end of his graduate studies, he moved to the University of Cambridge, U.K. as a postdoctoral Research Associate. In 2009, he moved back to LMS, Ecole Polytechnique as a tenured CNRS research scientist (equivalent to assistant/associate professor). He was promoted to Director of Research in 2022 (equivalent to Professor). He has obtained his HDR (Habilitation à diriger des recherches, 2016) from University of Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris. His main research interests are in the field of solid mechanics and composite materials. He is currently working on the experimental, numerical and theoretical analysis of microstructured active elastomers and their instabilities as well as on the modelling and fracture of metallic and 3D printed polymeric porous materials. He has been awarded an ERC starting grant (2014) and ERC Proof-of-Concept (2022) to carry out research on the low energy control of instabilities in magnetorheological elastomers (MREs). He is the recipient of the Bronze Medal from the CNRS in 2017 and the Jean Mandel Prize (2019) awarded bi-annually for excellence in research in mechanics to young scientists (below 40) working in France .