The brain engineer

Silvia Budday explores how our brain reacts to mechanical forces. Since 2024, her work has been funded by an ERC Starting Grant. The young professor in mechanical engineering does not see being a scientist and being a mother as a contradiction in terms.

It would have been too far by boat. So Silvia Budday and her husband, both enthusiastic sailors and water sports enthusiasts, traveled to Vancouver by plane. Two and a half weeks annual leave is not really anything unusual. However, the engineer spent two weeks of it attending conferences, and was even involved in organizing a symposium. “I am glad that I was able to combine both and that Dominik was able to look after our two year old son during the conferences.”

Silvia Budday holds the Chair of Continuum Mechanics with a focus on Biomechanics created within the context of the High-Tech Agenda Bavaria at FAU. She investigates how our brains react to mechanical influences. “That is important, for instance, during brain surgery,” she explains. “If a tumor has to be removed, forces are automatically exerted on surrounding tissue. Until now, we do not know what strain it can withstand and when it is irreparably damaged.” The MAGERY project led by Budday for which she acquired a Starting Grant in 2023, one of the most prestigious grants from the European Research Council, aims to close this gap in the knowledge.

The practical part of the research is not for the faint-hearted: Silvia Budday and her team of researchers dissect small cubes or cylinders from the brains of organ donors. The tissue samples are compressed or stretched and observed down to the cellular level using a multiphoton microscope. “We use the data gained from our measurements and observations to feed mathematical models and simulations,” explains Budday. The plan is to develop improved virtual and augmented reality applications for neurosurgery, on the one hand for training purposes and on the other as support during surgery. “We lay great store by the feedback we receive from surgeons, as while we hope to protect healthy tissue, we do not want to have red lights flashing all the time during operations and potentially distracting the team.”

Rollercoaster instead of Otto engine

Although her childhood dream was originally to become a zoo director or a journalist, Silvia Budday, who grew up near Stuttgart, decided to study mechanical engineering after leaving school. “During the introductory lecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the professor introduced the Otto engine stating that this example of state of the art German engineering makes hearts beat quicker. To be honest, I just wasn’t inspired.” It was a different story when Budday completed an internship at a Munich rollercoaster manufacturer: “I was completely fascinated with all the models and simulations showing how changing the smallest parameters can have a major effect. How much momentum does the carriage need for the next peak? Is it safe in the bend? Which stretches do visitors find exciting? How quickly can the rollercoaster accelerate without putting the passengers at risk?

Silvia Budday wrote her Bachelor’s thesis on this topic, and spent one year at the Purdue University in Indiana, USA, on a DAAD scholarship for her Master’s degree program that she completed in 2013 as the best in class. It was here that she finally decided to focus on biomechanics. In 2014 she went to Erlangen, to the Chair of Technical Mechanics (LTM) and Paul Steinmann, who supervised her doctoral thesis together with Ellen Kuhl from Stanford University. Ellen Kuhl has also been conducting research at FAU since July 2024 on an ERC Advanced Grant. “In Erlangen, we have established an amazing level of expertise in the area of brain mechanics that is now pooled together in the collaborative research center ‘Exploring Brain Mechanics’,” explains Budday.

“Mention is often made of the challenges of juggling a family and an academic career. This has never really crossed my mind. If you are passionate about something, you always manage to organize everything.” 

Prof. Dr. Silvia Budday

Combining family and career

The professor and soon to be mother of two never really wonders how to juggle her family and her academic career. “If you are passionate about something, you always manage to organize everything,” she says. She has a committed childminder she can rely on, and takes her son with her on business trips whenever possible. The late afternoon is reserved for her family, and in the evening she usually sits back down at her computer to concentrate on her research or prepare lectures. “The fact that I can arrange my time flexibly is a huge advantage of an academic career.” However, it is still a challenge, as her husband Dominik, who has also completed a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering, has a demanding job as a product manager at Siemens.

Whenever they find the time, they both enjoy sailing at the Dechsendorfer Weiher near their home, only a few kilometers away from Erlangen. “It’s true that there are definitely larger lakes, but you shouldn’t underestimate the winds we get here,” says Silvia Budday. They enjoy taking their boat, or alternatively their SUP, out on the lake, depending on the weather conditions. In Vancouver, they had considered hiring a sailing boat, but the weather was too rough in the end.  However, they made a point of doing the obligatory whale watching. Are there any plans for a major journey? “My husband would like to cross the Atlantic,” the researcher admits. “But I think we have quite literally missed the boat. An adventure like that is not without risks, and you definitely think twice about it when you have children. But a few days without land in sight, nothing but the sea between us and the horizon, that is something we definitely want to experience at some time.”

Author: Matthias Münch

This article is part of the FAU magazine

Innovation, diversity and passion: Those are the three guiding principles of our FAU, as stated in our mission statement. At FAU, we live these guiding principles every day in all that we do – in research, in teaching and when it comes to sharing the knowledge created at our university with society.

This, the second issue of our FAU magazine, underlines all of the above: It shows researchers who tirelessly keep pushing the boundaries of what has been believed to be possible. It introduces students who work together to achieve outstanding results for their FAU, talks about teaching staff who pass on their knowledge with infectious enthusiasm and creativity. And it reports back on members of staff with foresight and a talent for getting to the crux of the matter who are dedicated to improving the (research) infrastructure at FAU as well as people in key positions who are there for their university and are committed to its research location.