11/19/2012 This article was posted on October 22nd, 2012 by Meredith Staub.
Written by This article was posted on October 22nd, 2012 by Meredith Staub.
MechSE Professor Martin Ostoja-Starzewski has been named Chair Managing Editor of a new scientific journal, Mathematics and Mechanics of Complex Systems (MEMOCS) [http://msp.org/memocs/], being launched this winter.
MEMOCS will be a very unique publication in several ways. It will be a nonprofit publication owned, managed, and supported by academic institutions from countries all over the world. Because it is supported by these sponsoring institutions, subscription fees and page charges are not necessary, and electronic access to the publication will be open and free to all. Accepted manuscripts will be published free of charge to the author. Articles will only be selected on the basis of scientific merit, as the goal of the publication is to publish “the best possible exposition of high-quality, original research.”
Before coming to the University of Illinois in 2006, Ostoja-Starzewski worked in academic positions at McGill University, the Institute of Paper Science and Technology, Michigan State University, and Purdue University. He received his degree in mechanical engineering from Cracow University of Technology in Poland (1977), and his masters (1980) and Ph.D. (1983) in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Canada.
Ostoja-Starzewski's main research is in the mechanics of heterogeneous media, fractal structures, continuum mechanics, and thermodynamics. He has also done work blending basic physics concepts with mathematical modeling, analyzing spatio-temporal multiscale dynamics of head trauma based on MRI imaging of the brain, and has co-authored a book on generalized thermoelasticity. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the study of Representative Volume Element (RVE) size with respect to random heterogeneous materials, having written the first book on the subject.
Ostoja-Starzewski is the co-chair of the Pan American Congress of Applied Mechanics (PACAM) Committee at the American Academy of Mechanics (AAM). He has been a fellow of AAM since 2007 and a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers since 2001. He is also an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the World Innovation Foundation.