Engineering’s Spanos named ASCE Distinguished Member

BY PATRICK KURP

Pol Spanos, the Lewis B. Ryon Professor in Mechanical and Civil Engineering and professor of materials science and nanoengineering, was elected a distinguished member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the highest distinction given by the ASCE to its members.

Pol Spanos

Spanos and 12 others were named distinguished members during the ASCE board  meeting March 27.  According to the society’s bylaws, this honor is awarded to members who have attained “acknowledged eminence in some branch of engineering.”

One of the world’s leading experts on the dynamics and vibrations of structural and mechanical systems, Spanos is also interested in mechanical properties and fatigue/fracture issues of modern materials and in signal processing algorithms for dynamic effects in biomedical applications. He develops primarily analytic and numerical methods that often require advanced scientific computation packages and supercomputers. His solution techniques have been applied to a variety of areas, including vehicle and robot dynamics, flow-induced vibrations of offshore rigs, marine risers and pipelines, certification of payloads for space station missions, directional oil well drilling and signal processing for electrocardiograms.

Spanos joined the Rice faculty in 1984. Among his other professional honors are membership in the National Academy of Engineering and election as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Spanos will be formally inducted during the ASCE’s annual convention Oct. 11-14 in New York City. ASCE represents more than 146,000 members of the civil engineering profession worldwide and is the oldest national engineering society in the U.S. Since its founding in 1852, ASCE has named only 637 honorary/distinguished members.

— Patrick Kurp is a science writer in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.