A tribute to Thomas J.R. Hughes on the occasion of his 60th birthday

摘要

This special issue is dedicated to the celebration of the 60th Birthday of Thomas J.R. Hughes. A phenomenal leader in finite element methods and computational mechanics, Tom Hughes has made pioneering contributions on many fronts in these fields and has been a prime mover in bringing these fields to a new era. We see this in the contributions that he made directly, in the contributions he made through the students he trained and associates he guided, and in the contributions made by the friends and colleagues he inspired. It is a pleasure to recount Tom Hughes' career, which started with B.E. and M.E. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Pratt Institute and an M.S. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Engineering Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Upon graduation from Berkeley, he received the Bernard Friedman Memorial Award in Applied Mathematics. After receiving his Ph.D., he joined the Berkeley faculty, eventually moving to California Institute of Technology and then Stanford University before joining the University of Texas at Austin. At Stanford, Tom served as Chairman of the Division of Applied Mechanics, Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Chairman of the Division of Mechanics and Computation, and held the Mary and Gordon Crary Chair of Engineering. Tom Hughes' numerous honors and awards include the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from ASCE, the Melville Medal from ASME, the Computational Mechanics Award from the Japan Society of Mechanical Engi-neers, the Von Neumann Medal from USACM, the Gauss-Newton Medal from IACM, and the Worcester Reed Warner Medal from ASME. In 1995, Tom Hughes was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.