Reliable Automated Simulation Technologies: A Symposium Celebrating the 65th Birthday of Professor Mark S. Shephard

Catalin Picu, Rensselaer Polytecnic Institute

 

Simulation is used in the design of virtually every manufactured product, both in the design of the product and in the design of the manufacturing process. Reliable, fast simulations enable new products to be brought to market faster. Advancing product design requires simulation tools that support multi-scale integration, handle complex evolving geometries, provide scalable performance on extreme-scale computing systems, provide information on and control of uncertainty, and integrate and automate workflows.

Mark Shephard is internationally recognized for his innovative work in reliable simulation, automation, and parallel adaptive technologies. The novel concepts and algorithms that Shephard has created over his career have substantially influenced not just research in the area of computational mechanics but also the software that engineers use on a daily basis to apply computational mechanics to solving real-world problems. He has served as the president of the USACM and as a member of the General Council of the IACM. He is editor of Engineering with Computers and is on the editorial board of four other journals. Shephard is co-founder, board member, and technical advisor to Simmetrix Inc., a computer-aided engineering company dedicated to producing the software components to enable simulation-based engineering. Simmetrix software components are now licensed by over 30 CAE software companies around the world and through their products, used by many thousands of engineers. Shephard received his BS degree from Clarkson University in 1974 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1978. He joined Rensselaer in 1979. In 1997, when the USACM established the Computational and Applied Sciences Award, Shephard was the first selected to win this award. In 2011, he was awarded the John von Neumann Medal of the USACM.

This symposium is in honor of Mark Shephard and welcomes contributions from friends, former students, collaborators, and others who have been inspired by his contributions.