Dr.-Ing Cornelia Kalender studied environmental engineering and resource management at the RUB, but only came into contact with the topic of wind during her studies as part of her diploma thesis supervised by Prof.-Dr.-Ing. Höffer, owner of the Wind Engineering and Fluid Mechanics working group. As a student assistant at Niemann Ingenieure working under Prof. Höffer's predecessor em. Prof. Hans-Jürgen Niemann, she was involved in a wide variety of engineering projects at an early stage, including wind tunnel measurements. Hooked by the topic, she started working as a research assistant for Prof. Höffer in spring 2008. In 2014, she received her doctorate on the topic of „Windinduzierter Partikeltransport – Synergetische Kombination von physikalischer und numerischer Simulation“. As a Post Doc at the working group, she continues to work in the areas of computational fluid dynamics and wind tunnel experiments for wind flows in the built environment. In November, she was appointed president of the Windtechnologische Gesellschaft Deutschland, a welcome occasion to talk to Dr.-Ing Cornelia Kalender in more detail.

Why is wind engineering your passion?

I became an engineer because I wanted to learn how all the things that surround us work. It fascinates me to get to the bottom of these everyday things, to understand them and be able to explain them. Wind affects all of us in our daily lives. We breathe the air of our atmosphere, we see moving trees, we feel the wind and also the enormous forces it creates when it storms. Wind can damage buildings, make them move, transport dust and pollutants, but it can also generate energy and improve the urban climate. All of this makes wind engineering incredibly exciting and has kept me busy for over 12 years now.

How did you come to WtG and how did you end up being elected chairwoman?

Our working group has been associated with WtG for many decades due to its technical orientation and due to the operation of the boundary layer wind tunnel. In 2011, I presented my then PhD topic at the WtG D-A-CH meeting in Aachen, and since then I have regularly participated in the technical committees for wind tunnel applications and computational fluid dynamics in wind engineering and exchanged ideas with numerous colleagues. I have been an official member of WtG since 2015 and was elected to the board as an assessor for Germany in October 2019. When the opportunity to run for the chair of the WtG arose at this year's general meeting in October and I also received encouragement and honest support in advance, I stood for election.

Why is the WtG important according to you, what does it do?

The WtG was founded in 1987 with the aim of promoting communication between science, technology, industry and authorities and fostering national and international cooperation. An important element in this is the organization of the regular D-A-CH symposium (Germany - Austria - Switzerland), which supports the exchange of experience between practice and science. The conference brings together experts, users and those who are simply interested and enables an uncomplicated and direct exchange. This professional, personal exchange is very important and connects new developments in standardization and research with current issues and experiences from practice.
Another, in my opinion very important contribution of the WtG, is the development of leaflets. Currently, the revision of the WtG leaflet "Über Windkanalversuche in der Gebäudeaerodynamik" (1994) and the new development of two further leaflets on the topics "Windkomfort" und "Numerische Methoden im Windingenieurwesen" are in progress in technical committees. Thus, detailed assistance and recommendations with practical solutions are compiled according to the current state of the art. They describe requirements and recommendations e.g. for wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulations or for the procedure to assess wind comfort. This is very important, on the one hand, for quality assurance and, on the other hand, for the safe application and assessment of data and thus also brings about a certain standardization in the field.

What do you see as WtG's key focus areas in the future?

The WtG must continue to actively accompany and discuss new developments, such as the steadily increasing presence of numerical methods or the renewal of normative procedures. We can help to shape such changes, we must take a stand on them and continue to promote professional exchange. Through its members, the WtG can draw on a very wide range of experience and knowledge. In order to maintain and pass this on, we must continue to effectively network engineers involved in wind engineering topics and, in particular, arouse the interest of young engineers in the WtG.

What are your plans for the future?

In the last twelve years, I have been able to specialize very intensively and establish many national and international contacts. I would like to build on this and continue to play an active role in the field. Where and how exactly this will be possible remains to be seen.