Karen Willcox Receives Multiple Honors at USACM Conference

Karen Willcox, Director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, received simultaneous awards at the 17th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics hosted by the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM), held July 23-27 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

Willcox, who is a professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics in the Cockrell School of Engineering, received the J. Tinsley Oden Medal and was selected as a Fellow of the USACM.

“To receive any honor from a professional society is humbling. It’s a very special honor to receive one bearing the name of J. Tinsley Oden,” said Willcox.

“This award reflects the amazing students, postdocs, and collaborators I’ve worked with over the past two decades. Even though I’m receiving the medal, without all those collaborations I wouldn’t be here,” Willcox added.

The J. Tinsley Oden Medal was awarded for Willcox’s contributions to model reduction and multi-fidelity methods for the design and optimal control of high-dimensional systems with uncertainties. 

Willcox was selected as USACM Fellow  “for outstanding achievements in developing scalable methods for design of predictive digital twins under uncertainty, reduced-order modeling, data-to-decisions in aerospace engineering, and her leadership roles in computational sciences and engineering.”  

Jessica Zhang, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an alumna of the Oden Institute, is the current Secretary/Treasurer of USACM and the founding chair of USACM Female Researchers Group. “This really means a lot to women researchers in the field of computational engineering and sciences. Historically, very few women received the USACM awards and only Professor Mary Wheeler received the USACM Medals more than ten years ago. We are thrilled that Dr. Willcox received both the J. Tinsley Oden Medal and the Fellows Award this year. Her leadership on large research efforts and centers are phenomenal and she is an ideal role model to all researchers in interdisciplinary fields, including myself.”

Other honors acknowledged at the first in-person conference since the pandemic included an acknowledgement by Elsevier Publishers for J. Tinsley Oden’s leadership and lifetime achievement in editorship spanning 40 years for the journal Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.  A reception was held in honor of both Thomas Hughes and J. Tinsley Oden, Oden Institute core faculty and respective professors of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, as Editors Emeritus of the journal. Narayana Aluru, professor of Mechanical Engineering and core faculty at the Oden Institute, was elected a 2020 Fellow of the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM), and the plaque was presented in person.

The J. Tinsley Oden Medal is given in recognition of outstanding and sustained contributions to computational science, engineering, and mathematics. These contributions shall be given in the form of important research results that significantly advance the understanding of theories and methods of computational science, engineering, and mathematics that have a broad applicability to computational mechanics.

Fellows Award recognizes individuals with a distinguished record of research, accomplishment, and publication in areas of computational mechanics and demonstrated support of the USACM through membership and participation in the Association, its meetings and activities. 

The biennial U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics showcases the latest research in the broad field of computational mechanics, bringing together top researchers and practitioners in academia, government, and industry from around the world.