Duke University Robert J. Melosh Medal Competition for the Best Student Paper on Finite Element Analysis

The Robert J. Melosh Medal Competition was inaugurated in 1989 to honor Professor Melosh, a pioneering researcher in finite element methods and former chairman of civil and environmental engineering at Duke. In a professional career that included working at Boeing, Philco-Ford Laboratory, and MARC Analysis and Research Corporation, as well as teaching at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Washington, Virginia Tech, and Duke University, Professor Melosh made significant and varied contributions to the finite element method. The Competition was established in view of his body of work, and aims to reflect Professor Melosh's dedication to the education of young engineers and researchers by providing a forum for student researchers to present their work and interact with each other and with leading researchers in the field. The winner of the competition, as determined on the basis of a submitted extended abstract and oral presentation of the paper, receives the Robert J. Melosh Medal and a $500 honorarium.

The competition is conducted in two primary phases. Initially, extended abstracts are reviewed by a panel of distinguished researchers in computational mechanics. Based on this review process, the top six papers are selected as finalists, and their student authors are invited to participate in the second phase of the competition, a symposium at Duke University on April 29, 2011.

The symposium features lectures by the members of the distinguished judging panel, as well as talks by all the selected finalists. After the selection of the finalists and the symposium itself, the finalists will be given the opportunity to prepare a full-length manuscript for inclusion in the journal Finite Elements in Analysis and Design. The deadline for the extended abstracts, which are to be between three and five pages in length, is January 7, 2011.

Details concerning the submission of papers for the annual competition can be found at www.cee.duke.edu/melosh.