ECCOMAS AWARD FOR THE BEST Ph.D THESES OF 2016 ON COMPUTATIONAL METHODS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING

The meeting of the Evaluation Committee for the ECCOMAS award for the best PhD theses 2016 was held on March 31st, 2017 at CIMNE, Barcelona. As an answer to the call for tender, the ECCOMAS member associations nominated 18 theses. The Evaluation Committee was composed by Nils-Erik Wiberg (chairman), Isabel Narra Figueiredo, Adnan Ibrahimbegovic, Gianluigi Rozza and Pedro Díez (secretary).

After a detailed discussion, a voting process was held in two phases. First, after a secret voting the number of theses was reduced from 18 to 8. In a second round, the number was reduced to 4 theses that were ranked well above the rest. Then the committee discussed the merits of these 4 theses, evaluating the different aspects of each and unanimously agreed on selecting them as the two winners.

The two winners are:

  • Dr. Rogelio Ortigosa  (UK) for the thesis “On a new variational and computational framework for polyconvex nonlinear continuum mechanics and convex multi-variable nonlinear electro-elasticity 
  • Dr. Diane Sylvie Guignard  (Switzerland) for the thesis “A posteriori error estimation for partial differential equations with random input data 

These theses are outstanding works in Computational Methods in Applied Sciences combining excellent knowledge of both theory and practice, with special insight in the fundamental and computational aspects. The award decision was based on the relevance of the topics, originality of the theses, their scientific content and the innovative numerical developments. Moreover, both theses are very well written and meticulously presented.

All nominees will be recognized by a special diploma that will be sent directly to the candidate.. 

The list of finalists selected by the local-regional ECCOMAS Association is the following:

Author Title of the Thesis Association Country
Nicola A. Nodargi Incremental energy minimization and mixed finite element formulations for the analysis of inelastic structures AIMETA/GIMC Italy
Albertino José Castanho Arteiro Structural Mechanics of Thin-Ply Laminated Composites APMTAC Portugal
Thibaut Detraux Performance and Robustness of nonlinear Systems Using Bifurcation Analysis BNCTAM Belgium
Vuko  Vukčević Numerical Modelling of Coupled Potential and Viscous Flow for Marine Applications CEACM Croatia
Modesar Shakoor Three-dimensional Numerical Modeling of Ductile Fracture Mechanisms at the Microscale CSMA France
Tobias Gleim Simulation of Manufacturing Sequences of Functionally Graded Structures GACM Germany
Christoph Anton Meier Geometrically Exact Finite Element Formulations for Slender Beams and Their Contact Interactions GAMM Germany
Mikel Landajuela Coupling Schemes and Unfitted Mesh Methods for Fluid-Structura Interaction GAMNI/SMAI France
Ioannis S. Kavvadias Continuous Adjoint Methods for Steady and Unsteady Turbulent flows with Emphasis on the Accuracy of Sensitivity Derivatives GRACM Greece
Alexander Kleiman Nonlinear Spatio-Temporal Fluid-Structure Interaction of an Elastic Panel in a Uniform Flow IACMM Israel
Tom de Geus From Damage to Fracture, from Micro to Macro: A Systematic Study of Ductile Fracture in Multi-phase Microstructures NMC Netherlands
Olav  Møyner Next Generation Multiscale Methods for Reservoir Simulation NoACM Norway
Piotr Brzeski Energy Transfer in Systems of Coupled Oscillators PACM Poland
José Germán López Salas Analysis and Numerical Methods for Stochastic Volatility Models in Valuation of Financial Derivatives SEMA Spain
Guillermo Vilanova Caicoya Mathematical Modeling and Numerical Simulation of Tumor Angiogenesis SEMNI Spain
Giuseppe Vacca Advancements in Mimetic and Virtual Element Methods SIMAI Italy