Ortiz, Michael

Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering

California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA, USA

Address

California Institute of Technology (MC 105-50)
Pasadena, CA 91125
Phone: (626) 395-4530
Fax: (626) 395-1396

Research Interests

Michael Ortiz’s research interests are Solid mechanicians, which focus on the deformation and failure of materials with a defined rest shape - for example, the solid parts of Earth, the human-built environment, and biological matter such as the human body. An over-arching theme is to study the physics of a solid body’s reaction to diverse influences - stress, deformation, temperature changes, electromagnetic fields, fluid flow and how it fails. This is addressed on a range of length scales, from a cluster of atoms to tectonic plates, using experimental, theoretical, and computational methods. It also involves behaviors happening at highly diverse timescales, from picoseconds all the way to geologic timescales.

• Fellow, U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics, 1997
• Founding member, Spanish Society of Numerical Methods in Engineering (SEMNI), 1999
• Founding member, Activity Group on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science, SIAM, 2008