Lezsek Demkowicz Receives Honorary Doctorate from Poznan University of Technology

Renowned for his innovative methods for solving problems in the field of computational mechanics and mathematics, Leszek Demkowicz was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from Poznan University of Technology (PUT) in Poznań, Poland. This prestigious accolade was given in recognition of his scientific achievements and his more than 30-year partnership with the university. 

The honorary doctorate was presented during the 95th Annual Meeting of the International Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (GAMM 2025), held April 7 - 11, 2025. 

Throughout his career Demkowicz frequently traveled between the US and Poland. Although he wasn’t an alumnus, he built strong ties with PUT, offering short courses and plenary lectures. He also welcomed many of his Polish collaborators to UT Austin through the J. Tinsley Oden Faculty Fellowship Research (Visitors) Program.

Prof. Dr. Hab. Mieczysław Kuczma, a distinguished professor at the Institute of Structural Engineering at PUT delivered the heartfelt Laudatio. Kuczma was the organizer of the honorary doctorate process, which took more than a year to bring to fruition.

“Professor Demkowicz is one of the world’s most outstanding and respected researchers and creators of innovative methods for solving problems in the field of computational mechanics and mathematics. This ceremony is an expression of appreciation by our academic community for his great achievements,” stated Kuczma.

Born in Bielsko-Biala, 60 miles from Cracow, Poland, Demkowicz received his master’s degrees in both engineering mechanics and mathematics and a Ph.D. and habilitation from Cracow University of Technology in engineering mechanics, 

“I am extremely honored to be a recipient of this Honorary Doctorate, and with the ceremony and the overwhelming recognition - I did not expect even a fraction of celebrations,” said Demkowicz, following the events, which included a tree planting.

Karen Willcox, Oden Institute Director, gave an outline of Demkowicz’s career, and reminded the audience that this honor was not only Leszek’s, but also congratulated his wife, Stasia, saying “this is as much your achievement as it is Leszek’s.” 

Demkowicz often emphasizes that his career is deeply intertwined with his family, and that his professional story can’t be told without including them. At his core he is a family man, a proud father and grandfather of five children and 22 grandchildren, who have been integral to and shared in his success.

In her remarks, Willcox noted the long collaboration between Leszek and J. Tinsley Oden, which dates back to 1980, and described Tinsley’s love of metrics to capture both academic accomplishments, and the impact faculty has on the world. 

Using metrics, some exact and some estimated, Willcox, proceeded to layout Leszek’s career by the numbers. “I think they tell a fabulous story and the impact that he’s had on the world in many ways.”

Demkowicz has been a professor at UT Austin for 32 years, written nine books, 186 journal articles (so far), and 15,368 journal citations according to Google Scholar. His book, Computing with Hp-Adaptive Finite Elements, volumes 1 and 2, published in 2006, has 1,195 citations.

However, one number stood out among all the others. “More than one billion degrees of freedom in a finite element discretization. This was a Maxwell model for laser amplification in optical fiber amplifiers, solved on 24,576 computational cores, 512 compute nodes, implemented in Leszek’s HP 3D Finite Element software,” said Willcox.

 “I really want to emphasize this number. I'm not sure that there is another person in the world who has the mathematical prowess of Leszek Demkowicz, and who also has the ability to create algorithms that can scale to that kind of magnitude - which is absolutely transformative in bringing mathematics to implement problems in the real world. This is a real accomplishment.”

As an educator, Leszek has advised 25 Ph.D. students, and 18 post-doctoral researchers, and has taught 25 short courses, with 10 of those in Poland.

He has taught an Applied Functional Analysis course most, if not every year at UT. “He’s not only legendary for the rigor of his courses, but for his commitment and caring, earning a consistent 5.0 teaching scores from his students. I think he stayed most every Friday afternoon until every last engineering student had begun to master some of the functional analysis,” said Willcox. 

Beyond his role as a professor and family man, Willcox stated that Demkowicz is one of the pillars of the Oden Institute. “The Institute bears the name of John Tinsley Oden, but Leszek really is one the load-bearing structures that has built the community at the Institute.”

“For 43 years he worked in collaboration and friendship with J. Tinsley Oden, and in addition to being a professor, Leszek has been an Assistant Director of the Institute for 32 years.” Willcox said that she was thinking of Tinsley, commenting, “I know he would have loved to be here.”

Demkowicz holds the W. A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. Chair in Computational Engineering and Sciences, and is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the Cockrell School of Engineering, as well as mathematics. At the Oden Institute, Demkowicz leads the Electromagnetics and Acoustics Group. He began phased retirement in January 2025 after 50 years in academia.

This honorary doctorate adds to his long list of accolades which includes the Zienkiewicz Medal by the Polish Association for Computational Mechanics (PACM), the Computational Science Award by the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM), the ICES (now Oden Institute) Distinguished Researcher Award, and the Computational Mechanics Award by the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM). He is a Fellow of both IACM and USACM. In 2014, he became a foreign member of Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Among his enduring legacies are the establishment of the Oden Institute Seminar Series, held every Tuesday and Thursday, (except in the summer). It is estimated that Leszek has organized and attended more than 2000 seminars. 

Willcox concluded that the numbers don’t lie, “Leszek has had an incredible impact on so many people, on the research field, but also on the Institute and on his family. Congratulations on a very well-earned honor.”

As stated in his Laudatio, Kuczma said, “Professor Demkowicz is an excellent ambassador of Poland in the international arena and Poznan University highly appreciates him as an outstanding scientist and true friend.”

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GAMM 2025 was organized by Poznań University of Technology and the Polish Section of GAMM (PS GAMM), which is a national section of the Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (GAMM).