Speakers
General Lecture
Thomas J.R Hughes
Peter O’Donnell Jr. Chair in Computational and Applied Mathematics
Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
University of Texas at Austin
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Dr. Hughes is co-editor of the international journal Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, a founder and past President of USACM and IACM, past Chairman of the Applied Mechanics Division of ASME, and past Chairman of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNC/TAM). He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society of London. He has been elected to Distinguished Member, ASCE’s highest honor, and has received ASME’s highest honor, the ASME Medal. He has also received the Von Karman Medal from ASCE, the Timoshenko Medal from ASME, the Von Neumann Medal from USACM, the Gauss-Newton Medal from IACM, and the SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Engineering Science, and many other national and international awards for his research.
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Plenary Lectures
Gerard A. Ateshian
Andrew Walz Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Columbia University
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Dr. Gerard Ateshian received his BS (1986), MS (1987), MPhil (1990) and PhD (1991) degrees in mechanical engineering from Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers. He has been Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Colombia University since 2002 and the Andrew Walz Professor of Mechanical Engineering since 2013. Dr. Ateshian performs research in the field of soft tissue mechanics, with an emphasis on cartilage mechanics, lubrication, and tissue engineering, and the formulation of growth theories for biological tissues. A major component of his research focuses on understanding and treating osteoarthritis. Ateshian is particularly interested in formulating continuum mechanics theories that accommodate the complexities encountered in living biological tissues and cells, including mass transport, osmotic effects, and reactive mechanics in solid mixtures, needed to describe tissue growth and remodeling. Dr. Ateshian has received numerous prestigious awards, including the QARSI Basic Science Award (2013) and the H.R. Lissner Medal, ASME (2017).
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Vikram Deshpande
Professor in Materials Engineering
University of Cambridge
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Prof. Vikram Deshpande joined the faculty of Engineering at the University of Cambridge as a lecturer in 2001 and was promoted to a professorship in Materials Engineering in 2010. He has also served on the faculties at the University of California, Santa Barbara and at the Technical University of Eindhoven. His work is primarily in experimental and theoretical solid mechanics. He serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals in mechanics and biomechanics including Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering and the Proceedings of the Royal Society, London. He has been awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize, the William Hopkins medal, the 2020 Rodney Hill Prize in Solid Mechanics and elected Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
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Ellen Kuhl
Robert Bosch Department Chair/ Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Stanford University
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Ellen Kuhl is the Robert Bosch Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. She received her PhD from the University of Stuttgart and her Habilitation from the University of Kaiserslautern. Her area of expertise is Living Matter Physics, the design of theoretical and computational models to predict the behavior of living structures. She has published more than 250 peer-reviewed journal articles. Ellen is the current Chair of the US National Committee on Biomechanics and a Member-Elect of the World Council of Biomechanics. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and of the American Institute for Mechanical and Biological Engineering. She received the NSF Career Award, the Humboldt Research Award, and the ASME Belytschko Award. Ellen is an All American triathlete, a multiple Boston, Chicago, and New York marathon runner, and a Kona Ironman World Championship finisher.
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Javier Llorca
Scientific Director, IMDEA Materials Institute
Professor of Materials Science, Polytechnic University of Madrid
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Prof. Javier LLorca is scientific director and founder of the IMDEA Materials Institute and professor and head of the research group on “Advanced Structural Materials and Nanomaterials” at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. A Fulbright scholar, he is Fellow of the European Mechanics Society and of the Materials Research Society, member of the Academia Europaea and has held visiting positions at Brown University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Indian Institute of Science and China Central South University. His research activities have been focused in the systematic application of multiscale modeling strategies and mechanical characterization techniques (in the range nm to m) to establish the processing-structure-properties relationships of structural materials.
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Alan Needleman
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Texas A&M University
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Alan Needleman completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1970 and then spent five years in Applied Mathematics at MIT before joining Brown University where he became Florence Pirce Grant University Professor. In 2009 he moved to the University of North Texas and In 2015 joined Texas A&M University where he is a University Distinguished Professor and a TEES Eminent Research Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Professor Needleman is a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also awarded the Timoshenko Medal by ASME.
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