Zdeněk Bažant. Born and educated in Prague (Ph.D. 1963), Zdeněk Bažant joined Northwestern in 1969, where he has been W.P. Murphy Professor since 1990 and simultaneously McCormick Institute Professor since 2002, as well as Director of Center for Geomaterials (1981–87). He was inducted to NAS, NAE, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Royal Society London; to the academies of Italy (Lincei), Austria, Spain, Czech Republic, Greece (Athens) and Lombardy; and to Academia Europaea and European Academy of Sciences & Arts. He is an honorary member of ASCE, ASME, ACI, and RILEM; received seven honorary doctorates as well as the von Karman, Timoshenko, Prager and Newmark medals among many others; was awarded the Austrian Cross for Science and Art 1st Class from President of Austria; was President of SES, founding President of IA-FraMCoS and IA-ConCreep, and Editor-in-Chief of ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics. He has previously authored7 books and over 600 papers. In 2015, ASCE established Z.P. Bažant Medal for Failure and Damage Prevention, and Z.P. Bažant Prize for Engineering Mechanics was created in Czech Republic. He is one of the original top 100 ISI Highly Cited Scientists in Engineering (www.ISIhighlycited.com). Milan Jirásek graduated from the Czech Technical University in Prague in 1985 and received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1993. From 1994 to 2004 he was a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Since 2004 he has been a professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague. His research focuses on mathematical modeling and numerical simulations of deformation and failure of materials and structures, based on the theories of viscoelasticity, plasticity, fracture and damage mechanics. He has co-authored one book (Inelastic Analysis of Structures) and more than 60 journal papers,and hehas co-organized a series of international conferences (CFRAC - Computational Modeling of Fracture and Failure of Materials and Structures).
