Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering

Biography

Education

Polytechnical University of Madrid, Spain
B.S. Civil Engineering, June 1977

University of California, Berkeley
M.S. Civil Engineering, June 1978
Major fields: Structural Engineering and Structural Mechanics

University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D. Civil Engineering, December 1981
Major fields: Structural, Continuum and Computational Mechanics
Dissertation title: "Topics in Constitutive Theory for Inelastic Solids"

Professional Appointments

  • 1/79 - 4/82: Research Assistant, Department of Civil Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
  • 5/82 - 5/83: Postdoc Fellow, Dept Mathematics, MOPU Research and Experimentation Center, Madrid, Spain
  • 5/83 - 5/84: Research Scientist, Comp. Hydrodynamic Program, Dept. Coasts and Harbors, MOPU, Madrid, Spain
  • 7/84 - 7/87: Assistant Professor, Division of Engineering, Brown University
  • 7/87 - 6/90: Associate Professor, Division of Engineering, Brown University
  • 7/90 - 6/95: Professor, Division of Engineering, Brown University
  • 6/95 - 7/04: Professor, Division of Aeronautics, California Institute of Technology
  • 7/04 - 7/13: Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, Caltech
  • 7/13 - 8/20: Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, Caltech
  • 8/20 - present: Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor Emeritus of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, Caltech
  • 9/16 - present: Bonn Research Chair, Institute for Applied Mathematics, Bonn University, Germany
  • 9/20 - present: Adjunct Professor and Distinguished Timoshenko Fellow, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University

Honors and Awards

  • 1977-78 Fulbright Scholarship
  • 1994-95 Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar, Caltech
  • 1995-96 Midwest Mechanics Seminar - Distinguished Speaker
  • 1997 Fellow U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics
  • 1998 Southwest Mechanics Lecture Series - Distinguished Speaker
  • 1999 Spanish Academy of Engineering, Corresponding Member
  • 2002 Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists
  • 2002 IACM Computational Mechanics Award
  • 2007 Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences
  • 2007 Ted Belytschko Medal, USACM
  • 2008 Rodney Hill Prize, IUTAM
  • 2010 Hans Fischer Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Technical University of Munich
  • 2011 Zienkiewicz Prize, Spanish Association for Numerical Methods in Engineering (SEMNI)
  • 2013 Elected Member, US National Academy of Engineering
  • 2015 Timoshenko Medal, ASME
  • 2018 Inducted, Academy of Distinguished Alumni, Univeristy of California, Berkeley
  • 2019 Doctorate Honoris Causa, Polytechnic University of Madrid, UPM
  • 2019 John von Neumann Medal, USACM
  • 2020 Argyris Visiting Professorship, University of Stuttgart, Germany

Committees and Professional Activities

  • IMDEA Materials Institute, Madrid (Spain), Scientific Council, 2018-present
  • Basque Centre for Applied Mathematics, Bilbao (Spain), Scientific Advisory Committee, 2018-present
  • National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Section 10 Chair, 2018 - 2020
  • National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Section 10 Vicechair, 2016 - 2018
  • National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Section 10 Secretary, 2014 - 2016
  • NAS Comm on Opportunities in Protection Materials for Future Army Applications, 2010 - 2012
  • Organizer (with S. Mueller), SIAM Conference on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science, 2010
  • LLNL, Engineering Directorate Review Committee, Chair, 2008 - 2010
  • LLNL, Chemistry, Materials Earth and Life Sciences Directorate Review Committee, 2008 - 2009
  • Co-Founder, SIAM Activity Group on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science (SIAG), 2008
  • National Research Council, Study Committee for the Evaluation of QMU, 2007
  • Engineering Sciences External Review Panel, Sandia National Laboratory, 2006 - 2009
  • LLNL, Engineering Directorate, Predictive Science Panel, 2006 - 2013
  • LANL, T-Division DRC, 2004 - 2006
  • LANL, ESA Division DRC POC to UCOP S&T Panel, 2004 - 2006
  • LLNL, Engineering Directorate, DRC POC to UCOP S&T Panel, 2004 - 2006
  • University of California Science & Technology Panel, 2002 - 2007
  • Elected Member-at-Large, U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics, 2000-2008
  • Chairman, Computational Mechanics Committee of the ASCE/EMD, 1990-1992
  • Founding Member - Spanish Society of Numerical Methods in Engineering, 1999
  • NRC Comm on Application of Expert Systems to Materials Selection, 1991
  • Organizer (with C. F. Shih), IUTAM Symp on Computational Mechanics of Materials, 1993

Professional Societies

  • Fellow, U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics, 1997
  • Founding member, Spanish Society of Numerical Methods in Engineering (SEMNI), 1999
  • Founding member, Activity Group on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science, SIAM, 2008

Biographical Sketch

Professor Ortiz received a BS degree in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain, and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. From 1984-1995 he held a faculty position in the Division of Engineering of Brown University, where he carried out research activities in the fields of mechanics of materials and computational solid mechanics. In 1995 he became Professor of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology where he is Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor Emeritus of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering since his retirement in August of 2020. He served as the director of Caltech’s DoE/PSAAP Center on High-Energy Density Dynamics of Materials from 2008-2013. He concurrently holds a Bonn Research Chair in the Institute for Applied Mathematics of Bonn University and is Adjunct Professor and Distinguished Timoshenko Fellow in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Professor Ortiz has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at Caltech, Midwest and Southwest Mechanics Seminar Series Distinguished Speaker, an elected member-at-large of the US Association for Computational Mechanics, a, Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellow at the University of Stuttgart and the Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig, and a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Technical University of Munich. He is a Fellow of the US Association for Computational Mechanics, elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and an elected Member of the US National Academy of Engineering. Professor Ortiz is the recipient of the 2002 IACM International Computational Mechanics Award, the 2007 Ted Belytschko Medal of the USACM, the inaugural 2008 Rodney Hill Prize conferred every four years by the IUTAM, the 2011 Zienkiewicz Prize of the Spanish Association for Numerical Methods in Engineering (SEMNI), the 2015 Timoshenko Medal of the ASME and the 2019 John von Neumann Medal of the USACM.. Professor Ortiz has served in the University of California Office of the President Science and Technology Panel, the Los Alamos National Laboratory T-Division Review Committee, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Predictive Science Panel, the Sandia National Laboratories Engineering Sciences External Review Panel, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Chemistry, Materials, Earth and Life Sciences Directorate Review Committee, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Engineering Directorate Review Committee and the National Research Council Panel for the Evaluation of QMU. He has been editor of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics of ASCE and of the Journal of Applied Mechanics of the ASME and is presently editorial advisor of the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and member of the editorial boards of the Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering and of Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering Journal.

Curriculum Vitae - Short (pdf)