Professor Michael A. Sutton's lecture at the 20th International Conference on Advances in Experimental Mechanics, hosted by the British Society for Strain Measurement (BSSM) in Swansea, UK, 8–10 September 2026. The lecture has two parts. The first and larger part presents IMPACT (Inverse Method for Property Assessment via Correlation Techniques), a method that extracts heterogeneous material properties directly from full-field DIC strain data. It solves the equilibrium equations for the properties instead of iterating a finite element model until it matches the measurements. Sutton covers the theory and the stabilization the inverse problem needs, then shows 1D results from synthetic data and from a multi-layer specimen measured with VIC-3D. He also presents new 2D results compared side by side with finite element model updating (FEMU) on an aluminum tensile specimen. The FEMU analysis was run independently by Hubert Schreier and Ian Adkins of Correlated Solutions. The second part presents a non-parametric method for reconstructing stress fields under dynamic loading. It combines DIC-measured motion with explicit dynamic finite element analysis, so it needs no material model, and is demonstrated on a Kolsky bar test. The lecture closes with a short history of DIC. Michael A. Sutton is a Carolina Research Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Carolina, and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Correlated Solutions. For more information, please visit correlatedsolutions.com