Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 2

Prof. Isaac Elishakoff is an international leading authority across a broad area of structural mechanics, including dynamics and stability, optimization and anti-optimization, probabilistic methods, analysis of structures with uncertainty, refined theories, functionally graded material structures, and nanostructures. He was born in Kutaisi, Republic of Georgia, on February 9, 1944.

Figure P.2. Elishakoff in middle school in the city of Sukhumi, Georgia

Elishakoff holds a PhD in Dynamics and Strength of Machines from the Power Engineering Institute and Technical University in Moscow, Russia ( Figure P.4depicts the PhD defense of Prof. Isaac Elishakoff).

Figure P.3. Elishakoff just before acceptance to university. Photo taken in Sukhumi, Georgia

Figure P.4. Public PhD defense, Moscow Power Engineering Institute and State University; topic “Vibrational and Acoustical Fields in the Circular Cylindrical Shells Excited by Random Loadings”, and dedicated to the evaluation of noise levels in TU-144 supersonic aircraft

His supervisor was Prof. V. V. Bolotin (1926–2008), a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences ( Figure P.5shows Elishakoff with Bolotin some years later).

Figure P.5. Elishakoff with Bolotin (middle), member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Prof. Yukweng (Mike) Lin (left), member of the US National Academy of Engineering. Photo taken at Florida Atlantic University during a visit from Bolotin

Currently, Elishakoff is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering at Florida Atlantic University. Before joining the university, he taught for one year at Abkhazian University, Sukhumi in the Republic of Georgia, and 18 years at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where he became the youngest full professor at the time of his promotion ( Figure P.6shows Elishakoff presenting a book to Prof. Josef Singer, Technion’s former president).

Figure P.6. Prof. Elishakoff presenting a book to Prof. J. Singer, Technion’s President; right: Prof. A. Libai, Aerospace Engineering Department, Technion

Elishakoff has lectured at about 200 meetings and seminars, including about 60 invited, plenary or keynote lectures, across Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and the Far East.

Prof. Elishakoff has made vital and outstanding contributions in a number of areas in structural mechanics. In particular, he has analyzed random vibrations of homogeneous and composite beams, plates and shells, with special emphasis on the effects of refinements in structural theories and cross-correlations. Free structural vibrations have been tackled using a non-trivial generalization of Bolotin’s dynamic edge effect method. Nonlinear buckling has been investigated using a novel method, incorporating experimental analysis of imperfections. As a result, the fundamental concept of closing the gap – spanning the entire 20th century – between theory and practice in imperfection-sensitive structures has been proposed. Novel methods of evaluating structural reliability have been proposed, taking into account the error associated with various low-order approximations, as well as human error; innovative generalization of the stochastic linearization method has been advanced. A non-probabilistic theory for treating uncertainty in structural mechanics has been established. Dynamic stability of elastic and viscoelastic structures with imperfections has been studied. An improved, non-perturbative stochastic finite element method for structures has been developed. The list of Elishakoff’s remarkable research achievements goes on.

His research has been acknowledged by many awards and prizes. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics and ASME, and a Foreign Member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences. Elishakoff is also a recipient of the Bathsheva de Rothschild prize (1973) and the Worcester Reed Warner Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2016).

Figure P.7. Elishakoff having received the William B. Johnson Inter- Professional Founders Award

Elishakoff is directly involved in numerous editorial activities. He serves as the book review editor of the “Journal of Shock and Vibration” and is currently, or has previously been an associate editor of the International Journal of Mechanics of Machines and Structures, Applied Mechanics Reviews , and Chaos, Solitons & Fractals . In addition, he is or has been on the editorial boards of numerous journals, for example Journal of Sound and Vibration , International Journal of Structural Stability and Dynamics , International Applied Mechanics and Computers & Structures . He also acts as a book series editor for Elsevier, Springer and Wiley.

Figure P.8. Inauguration as the Frank Freimann Visiting Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering; left: Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame; right: Prof. Timothy O’Meara, Provost

Prof. Elishakoff has held prestigious visiting positions at top universities all over the world. Among them are Stanford University (S. P. Timoshenko Scholar); University of Notre Dame, USA (Frank M. Freimann Chair Professorship of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Henry J. Massman, Jr. Chair Professorship of Civil Engineering); University of Palermo, Italy (Visiting Castigliano Distinguished Professor); Delft University of Technology, Netherlands (multiple appointments, including the W. T. Koiter Chair Professorship of the Mechanical Engineering Department – see Figure P.9); Universities of Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan (Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science); Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, People’s Republic of China (Visiting Eminent Scholar); Technion, Haifa, Israel (Visiting Distinguished Professor); University of Southampton, UK (Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering).

Figure P.9. Prof. Elishakoff with Prof. Warner Tjardus Koiter, Delft University of Technology (center), and Dr. V. Grishchak, of Ukraine (right)