U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) research scientist, Dr. John Michopoulos, is conferred Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for outstanding leadership and multidisciplinary engineering achievements in the areas of mechatronic and robotic design, computational algorithms, scientific software, and scientific hardware research and development. The award was presented August 6 at the 2013 Computers and Information in Engineering conference, Portland, Ore.
Head of the Computational Multiphysics Systems Laboratory at NRL, Michopoulos has earned international acclaim and reputation for research and leadership on many multidisciplinary areas of engineering science and technology. His pioneering work and innovative leadership has resulted in the development of the first autonomous recursive six-degrees of freedom (6-DoF) robotic testing system. Designed for the data driven constitutive characterization of anisotropic materials, the robotic material loader recently achieved the highest industrial rates of fully automated multiaxial testing functionality.
Michopoulos' multidisciplinary and significant contributions extend to forward and inverse approaches of multiphysics modeling and simulation methods and algorithms and computational tools on high performance computing architectures, as they relate to areas such as electromagnetic launcher systems, data-driven environments for multiphysics applications, artificial muscle smart materials, electromagnetic propulsion, sensor networks for structural and environment monitoring, optical methods for displacement and strain measurement, failure theories, coupled electro-magneto and hygrothermoelastic theories, electromagnetic discharge imaging, catastrophe theory applications, and many others.
A graduate from National Technical University of Athens, Greece, Michopoulos received a doctorate in theoretical and applied mechanics, completing defense of his Ph.D. thesis, Closed Form Solutions of Plane Crack Problems in Isotropic and Anisotropic Elasticity, June 1983. As a postdoctoral student at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., Michopoulos also served as an adjunct professor at both Lehigh University and Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., demonstrating his dedication to the value of education in engineering and science. Michopoulos continues his dedication to education at NRL as a mentor to many Naval Research Enterprise Intern Program (NREIP) students and summer faculty.
Prior to fully joining NRL in 1991, Michopoulos performed collaborative research with the Materials Science and Technology Division as senior research scientists for Geo-Centers, Inc., Ft. Washington, Md. He co-developed the first method for the mechatronically automated and data-driven characterization of the non-linear constitutive behavior of polymer matrix composites, introducing the concept of dissipated energy density as a device to capture the constitutive behavior of these materials and as a material and structural health metric. Michopoulos also designed, implemented, and tested the first simulators of the non-linear constitutive behavior of composite materials.
Michopoulos holds two awarded and six patents pending, has been honored to deliver numerous talks on his research, and has authored and co-authored over 240 publications. His accomplishments have been further recognized by numerous national and international performance, achievement, and service awards including several 'best paper' awards, NRL's Alan Berman and Edison awards, as well as the NRL Award of Merit for Group Achievement for outstanding contributions to the development of the Navy's Electromagnetic Railgun.
In addition to providing agency and industry consultancy, Michopoulos has contributed on engineering product applications, scholarships, and education while providing exemplary service and citizenship at local, national, and international levels. He has served in the executive committee of the Computers and Information in Engineering (CIE) division of the ASME and has chaired various conferences on computational sciences and engineering, and relevant committees and chair and co-chair on more than 30 symposia and over 55 technical sessions in national and international conferences. He has also served as an associate editor of ASME's Journal of Computers and Information in Engineering and is currently an editor of the Journal of Computational Sciences.
The citation for Michopoulos' fellowship reads: Dr. John Michopoulos has earned international acclaim and reputation for research and leadership on many multidisciplinary areas of engineering science and technology. His innovative leadership has resulted in the development of the first recursive 6-DoF robotic testing system for the data-driven constitutive characterization of materials. His significant contributions on computational modeling and simulation have been applied to many applications including data-driven environments for multiphysics applications, optical methods for strain measurement, and electromagnetic launching systems. Many national and international organizations including the executive committee of the CIE division of the ASME, and many conferences have benefited by his exemplary services.
Founded in 1880, ASME is a not-for-profit membership organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, career enrichment, and skills development across all engineering disciplines. The goal and mission of ASME is to help the global engineering community develop solutions to benefit lives and livelihoods and promote the art, science and practice of mechanical and multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences to diverse communities throughout the world.