David Russell graduated from Southampton University in 2010 with a 1st Class Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. David has a 10 year career in numerical simulation including working in government defence as a numerical simulation engineer and as an independent consultant working with several automotive OEMs and Universities to develop their numerical capability and products. David founded Vortex Engineering Group in 2017 to deliver Tier 1 support to OEMs and consultancies. Vortex Engineering Group has since produced the Xyclone LS-DYNA structural optimisation code to address a need in the industry for a scalable optimisation code that can manage dynamic and static analyses using the industry preferred FE solver.