Dr. J. Tinsley Oden

CEE Hall of Distinction: 2007

J. Tinsley Oden is Associate Vice President for Research and Director of the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) at The University of Texas at Austin. He was the founding Director of that Institute, created in January of 2003 as an expansion of the Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics, also directed by Oden for over a decade. He holds the Cockrell Family Regents’ Chair in Engineering and the Peter O’Donnell, Jr. Centennial Chair in Computer Systems at The University of Texas at Austin.

In 1959, Dr. Oden earned a B.S. degree in civil engineering from LSU. He then earned a Ph.D. in engineering mechanics from Oklahoma State University in 1962.

Dr. Oden began his research in computational mechanics and applied mechanics in the 1960’s. His treatise, Finite Elements of Nonlinear Continua is cited as having not only demonstrated the great potential of computational methods for producing quantitative realizations of the most complex theories of physical behavior of materials and mechanical systems, but also established a new discipline built upon concepts in mathematics, computer sciences, physics, and mechanics. Computational Mechanics has since become a fundamentally important discipline throughout the world, taught in every major university, and the subject of continued research and intellectual activity. Dr. Oden has published extensively in this field and in related areas over the last three decades.

Dr. Oden is the author or editor of 500+ scientific books, book chapters, essays, articles, and conference papers, including 50 books and monographs. He is also an editor of the series, Finite Elements in Flow Problems and of Computational Methods in Nonlinear Mechanics. Among the 49 books and book chapters he has authored or edited are Contact Problems in Elasticity, a six-volume series: Finite Elements, An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Finite Elements, and several textbooks, including Applied Functional Analysis and Mechanics of Elastic Structures, and, more recently, A Posteriori Error Estimation in Finite Element Analysis, with M. Ainsworth.

Dr. Oden’s current research focuses on the development of computational methods for multi-scale modeling, with applications to semi-conductor manufacturing and on computer models for the adaptive control of laser therapies for cancer.

Dr. Oden is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and National Academics of Engineering in Mexico and Brazil. He serves as Co-Chairman of the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) Panel for Sandia National Laboratories. He is a member of the IUTAM Working Party 5 on Computational Mechanics and serves on numerous organizational, scientific and advisory committees for international conferences and symposiums. He is an Editor of the international journal Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering and serves on the editorial board of 27 scientific journals.

Dr. Oden has received numerous awards for his accomplishments. He is an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and is a Fellow of IACM, AAM, ASME, ASCE, SES, and BMA. He is a Fellow, founding member, and first President of the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanic and the International Association for Computational Mechanics. He is a Fellow and past President of both the American Academy of Mechanics and the Society of Engineering Science. Among the numerous awards he has received for his work, Dr. Oden was awarded the Computational Mechanics Award from the Japanese Society of Mechanics Engineers, A.C. Eringen Medal, The Worcester Reed Warner Medal, the Melvin R. Lohmann Medal, the Theodore von Karman Medal, the John von Neumann medal, the Newton-Gauss Congress Medal, and the Stephan P. Timoshenko Medal. He was also knighted as “Chevalier des Palmes Academiques” by the French government and holds four honorary doctorates, Honoris Causa, from The Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal, the Faculte Polytechnique in Belgium, Cracow University of Technology in Poland, and the Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan in France. Dr. Oden has been awarded a Presidential Citation for his outstanding contributions to the University of Texas at Austin, the equivalent of an honorary doctorate. He is listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the most highly cited researchers in the world from 1981-1999 in refereed, peer-reviewed journals.