Jan Knippers is a leading German civil engineer and the director of the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart, a position he has held since 2000. He completed his engineering degree and PhD at the Technical University of Berlin. Knippers's expertise lies at the forefront of bio-architecture, exploring the intersection of bionics, resource-efficient structural engineering, and innovative materials. He has served as the Deputy Executive Director of the IntCDC Cluster of Excellence and coordinated the DFG collaborative research center 'Biological Design and Integrative Structures'. Beyond his academic roles, he is the co-founder of Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering and Jan Knippers Ingenieure, directly applying his research in load-bearing fiber composite materials and timber structures to full-scale architectural projects.