February 27, 2009
Thomas J.R. Hughes, aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics professor, has been selected as the recipient of a Humboldt Research Award for senior United States scientists. The award is in recognition of Hughes’ lifetime achievements in research and teaching. In addition, Hughes is invited to attend the symposium for research award winners, March 26-29,and the Humboldt Foundation’s annual meeting, June 8-10, during which there is a reception given by the president of Germany. To promote scientific cooperation between research institutions in both countries, Hughes is invited to visit German institutes to collaborate on research with his German colleagues. The research will focus on isogeometric analysis, a new engineering analysis technology based on concepts from graphics, visualization, animation and design, recently developed by Hughes and his team. The objective is to eliminate the overall analysis time, estimated to be about 80 percent, that major engineering industries take when translating design files to analysis-suitable files between Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE).
Hughes holds the Computational and Applied Mathematics Chair III in the university’s Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES).
