Julia Schmidbauer was born in Upper Austria and has always been very interested in engineering, leading her to choose Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering as her specialisation at the HTL Leonding (Austria). Later, she studied for her bachelor’s degree in Mineral Resources Engineering at the Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria) and her master’s degree in Tunneling and Geotechnics. After a few years of practical experience in tunnel construction sites, she moved back to Styria in 2019. She currently lives in Trofaiach and works at the Ausseninstitut of the Montanuniversität Leoben in the field of technology transfer.