The 2018 JN Reddy Medal Inaugural Recipient
J.N. Reddy
Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor, and the inaugural holder of the Oscar S. Wyatt, Jr. Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University
Citation:
For lasting contributions to composite structures through the development of higher-order shear deformation plate and shell theories and finite element models and to engineering education through textbooks on laminated composite plates and shells and linear and nonlinear finite elements.
Dr. Reddy is a highly cited researcher, author of 21 textbooks and nearly 700 journal papers, and a leader in the applied mechanics field for more than 45 years. He has earned a strong national and international reputation for his research, education, and leadership in applied and computational mechanics, and he is one of the most well-known, highly cited, and active researchers in engineering. Dr. Reddy earned a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics (1974) from University of Alabama in Huntsville. He worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Texas Institute for Computational Mechanics (TICOM, which grew into ICES) at the University of Texas at Austin (1974), Research Scientist for Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, Huntsville (l974-75), and taught at the University of Oklahoma (1975-1980), Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (1980-1992), and at Texas A&M University from 1992 till now.
Dr. Reddy has made seminal contributions to a diverse number of topics of engineering, paving the road for others to advance and apply his ideas. His earlier works include: (1) the study of existence and uniqueness of mixed finite element approximations as well as the unification of variational principles of theoretical mechanics, both of which resulted in two books (coauthored with J.T. Oden) that are widely cited; (2) the development of higher-order shear deformation theories and finite element models of laminated composite and functionally graded plate and shell structures; his book on this subject is considered to be both a textbook as well as a reference for engineers; elements of his third-order kinematics have been implemented into Abaqus finite element software; (3) formulation and computer implementation of the penalty finite element models for fluid flows, including Newtonian and generalized non-Newtonian fluids; this work is implemented into commercial software NISA (marketed by Engineering Mechanics Corporation) and HyperXtrude (marketed by Altair); (4) the development and advancement of least-squares finite element models of fluid flow; this is a paradigm shift from the conventional c0-finite elements based on weak-form Galerkin formulations of the Navier-Stokes equations to the leastsquares formulations.
Dr. Reddy has received several top honors and awards of most professional societies of his field. The most-significant recent national and international awards are as follows: 2014 IACM O.C. Zienkiewicz Award from the Int. Association of Computational Mechanics; 2014 Raymond D. Mindlin Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); the 2016 ASME Medal; the 2016 William Prager Medal from the Society of Engineering Science; the 2017 John von Neumann Medal from the US Association of Computational Mechanics; and the 2018 Theodore von Karman Medal from ASCE. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and foreign member of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Brazilian National Academy of Engineering, and Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures. The creation of the J. N. Reddy Medal is to commemorate his contributions to the mechanics of advanced materials and structures.
Link to Web Page: https://mechanics.tamu.edu/
Carlos Mota Soares
Emeritus Professor, University of Lisbon, Instituto Superior Tecnico
Citation:
For significant contributions to the optimal structural design, composite materials and structures, and adaptive structures; his role in the modernization of Mechanical Engineering in Portugal; and for his leadership in computational mechanics community in Europe.
Professor Carlos Alberto Mota Soares has been Emeritus Professor since 2018, where he was a Full Professor from 1985 to 2015. The career of Professor Carlos Mota Soares started in 1964 as Engineering Apprentice at British Leyland Motor Corporation, where, as member of the Task Force for Design Automation, which he integrated in 1968, he was pioneer in the introduction of computer assisted design for vehicle components and systems. At the same time, he obtained a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and a M.Sc. in Solid Mechanics at the University of Aston, Birmingham. Then he received his Ph.D. in Structural Dynamics from the University of Surrey and joined the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research of the University of Southampton, as Associate Researcher between 1974 and 1977. His contributions to the development of research and education in Mechanical Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico are significant. He was Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering for 11 years. In recognition of his work, which shaped the department, the faculty, and the university in the last decades, he was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor of the Technical University of Lisbon in 2009 and Emeritus Professor of the University of Lisbon in 2018. He was also a member of the General Council of the Technical University of Lisbon since 2008 and of the University of Lisbon since 2013. At the national level, his contributions to the advancement of research in computational mechanics are remarkable. He directed the Center of Mechanics and Materials of the Technical University of Lisbon (CEMUL) from 1982 to 1992 and then founded the Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IDMEC) and assumed its leadership and success for twenty-five years (1992-2016). He was also founder and Scientific Coordinator (2006-2014) of the Associate Laboratory for Energy, Transports and Aeronautics (LAETA).
Professor Mota Soares contributed significantly to various domains of research within the Structural and Computational Mechanics field, such as Mechanics of Composite Materials and Structures, Smart Structures and Materials, Computer Aided Optimal Design of Structural and Mechanical Systems, and Multidisciplinary Optimization. His contributions to the research community include the organization of 18 editions of renowned international, European, and national conferences, 3 NATO summer schools, 2 Advanced Study Institutes, and one Advanced Research Workshop. He also coordinated 40 COMETT courses and 11 national, 10 European, and 2 AGARD projects. Professor Carlos Mota Soares is also very active in the management of international, European, and national research programs (BRITE, GROWTH, NMP, EUCLID, and FCT) and scientific societies (IACM, ECCOMAS, and the Portuguese Association of Theoretical, Applied and Computational Mechanics – APMTAC). His numerous scientific publications include the edition of 7 books, 11 conference proceedings, and 19 special issues for several international journals, of which he is associate editor (10), editorial board member, and reviewer (6). He published 23 edited book chapters, about 120 journal papers, and more than 200 articles in national and international conference proceedings. Professor Carlos Mota Soares supervised or co-supervised 13 PhD theses in finite elements, beams, plates and shells, optimization, active control, active, passive and hybrid active-passive damping, parameter estimation and inverse problems, damage detection, smart composites and composite structures.
Link to Web Page: http://www.ulisboa.pt/