Dr. Alderliesten started working on FMLs as a fatigue & damage tolerance specialist at the Fibre Metal Laminates Centre of Competence in Delft. In 2005 this resulted in the award of a PhD degree from TU Delft, where he was subsequently appointed as assistant professor. Dr Alderliesten has been involved in many FML activities with both OEMs and lower tier suppliers, as well as developing and teaching professional education courses on fatigue and damage tolerance, manufacturing, and design of FMLs. He also continues to lead academic research programmes into the fatigue behaviour of FMLs.