In recognition of his multidisciplinary work in fundamental fields, including the mechanics of structures and materials for sustainable civil infrastructures, Professor Oral Buyukozturk has been elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s national academy of science and letters. Corresponding Fellows are internationally distinguished non-resident fellows of the society.

The award citation mentioned Buyukozturk’s leading role in the improvement and advancement of engineering education in the U.S. and abroad; and his pioneering research in the mechanics of concrete and advanced composite materials, the mechanics of infrastructure deterioration and assessment, and on the remote non-destructive testing of bridges and other structures using electromagnetic waves.

The citation also emphasized Buyukozturk’s earlier contributions in the computational mechanics area, such as his world-renowned fundamental developments in nonlinear finite element analysis for a broad spectrum of multidisciplinary engineering applications. Buyukozturk’s past projects have involved analysis of hydrodynamic forces and the design of offshore ocean structures, and the thermo-mechanical analysis and design of nuclear containment structures and process vessels for diverse industrial applications.

During the induction ceremony held May 11 in Edinburgh, new Fellows signed the Society’s 225-year-old membership book, putting Buyukozturk in the company of Charles Darwin, Lord Kelvin, Clerk Maxwell and James Watt, whose names are also among those carved in stone on MIT buildings. On the following day, Buyukozturk delivered a keynote presentation, “Dielectric Properties of Materials and Very High Frequency Radar NDT,” at the Telford Institute’s International Conference on Sonic and Radar NDT of Infrastructure, which was held in connection with the Royal Society ceremony.