03 Brief CV (list)

          

          A Brief CV

Cambridge University, 1955-64

 

              First Class Honours in Mechanical Sciences, B.A. (1958), M.A. (1962)

            Prizes: Rex Moir, Archibald Denny, John Winbolt

            Higher degrees: Ph.D. (1962), Sc.D. (1977)

            Research Fellowship, Peterhouse, 1961-64

 

University College London, 1964-2002

 

              Professor of Structural Mechanics, 1977-91

            Senior Fellow, Science & Engineering Research Council, 1988-93

            Professor of Nonlinear Dynamics, 1991-2002  (now Emeritus Professor)

            Founder and Director of Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics, 1991

 

Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics & its Applications, 1991-2002

 

              This had 31 members: 3 staff, 2 industrial professors, 10 fellows, 16 post-graduates

            The MSc course was recognized and supported by EPSRC for many years

            Royal Society Research Fellowships: McRobie, Davies, Popov, Heijden

            Ł2 million earned in grants & awards

            From 2002 it has become a virtual Centre, linking researchers in many UCL Depts

 

Visiting Appointments

 

              Fulbright Research Associate, Aeronautics & Astronautics, Stanford, 1962-3

            Visiting Professor, Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1976-8

            Visiting Mathematician, Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, 1984

 

IUTAM Symposia organised at UCL

 

              Collapse: the buckling of structures in theory and practice, 1982

            Nonlinearity and chaos in engineering dynamics, 1993

 

Principal Honours and Awards

 

              Fellow of the Royal Society, 1985.  Elected to the Council, 11 July 2002

            OMAE Award, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1985

            James Alfred Ewing Medal, Institution of Civil Engineers, 1992

              Honorary Doctor of Science (DSc), University of Aberdeen, 2004

            Gold Medal of the IMA for contributions to mathematics, 2004

 

Industrial Collaborations & Activities

 

              W.S. Atkins: resonance of articulated moorings, 1984; ships in waves, 1992

            Defence Research Agency: long-term contract on transient capsize (1989-98)

            British Aerospace: flight dynamics of the Harrier Jump-jet, 1996

            SAIPEM: consultancy on the twisting of off-shore pipelines in deep water

 

Chairman, Board of Directors, ES-Consult 1995-

 

               ES-Consult worked on tuned dampers for Great Belt Bridge (was world's longest span)

 

Books Published (by John Wiley)

 

              A General Theory of Elastic Stability, 1973

            Instabilities & Catastrophes in Science & Engineering, 1982 (Trans: Russia, Japan)

            Elastic Instability Phenomena, 1984

            Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, 1986 (Trans: Japan, Italy). Second Edition, 2002

 

Editor, Philosophical Transactions (A) of the Royal Society, 1998-07

 

               Special Issues:  Three Millennium Issues, 1999, 2000. Triennial Series, 2002-

            Created the new Royal Society Series on Advances in Science, with the first book:

            Advances in Astronomy, ed. JMT Thompson, Imperial College Press, 2005.

 
 
Research Papers

 

            About 200 papers published. Some journals (with approx numbers of papers in each) are:

 

            Proc. R. Soc. Lond.                (16)                 Int. J. Solids & Structures                  (5)

            J. Mech. Phys. Solids             (13)                 Dynamics & Stability of Systems        (5)

            Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.      (12)                 Physica D                                          (3)

            Physics Letters                       (6)                   J. Appl. Math. Phys. (ZAMP)             (3)

            Int. J. Mech. Sci.                    (6)                   J. Mech. Engng Sci.                            (3)

            Int. J. Bifn & Chaos               (6)                   Physical Review                                 (3)

            J. Sound & Vibration              (6)                   Nature                                               (3)

 

Some Opening and Keynote Lectures

 

              General Lecture, 14th IUTAM Congress, Delft, 1976

            General Lecture, 28th British Theoretical Mechanics Meeting, Bristol, 1986

            General Lecture to the General Assembly of IUTAM, London, 1986

            Opening, AFOSR/ARO Conference, Nonlinear Vibrations, Blacksburg, 1987

            Closing, Roy. Soc. Meeting on Newton's Principia and its Legacy, London, 1987

            Fellowship of Engng, Chaos & the danger of unpredictable failure, London, 1990

            Keynote, 2nd World Congress, Computational Mechanics, Stuttgart, 1990

            General Lecture, Spring Conference, Institute of Acoustics, Southampton, 1990

            Plenary, 1st European Nonlinear Oscillations Conference, Hamburg, 1993

            Plenary, Dynamics Day '94, Theoretical Physics, Eötvös University, Budapest, 1994

            Plenary, Conf. Theory of Ordinary & Partial Differential Equations, Dundee, 1996

            Opening, Conference, Structural Dynamics, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1996

            Keynote, IUTAM Symp. Applics Nonlinear ... Dynamics in Mechanics, Cornell, 1997

            Opening, IMA Conf. Bifurcations: the use and control of chaos, Southampton, 2003.

 

Honorary Fellow, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

(DAMTP), Cambridge University, 2003-

             Lectures in the Millennium Mathematics Project for the public understanding of

          mathematics in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences:

             Chaos and Fractals (22 Jan 2004) Instabilities and Catastrophe (11 Nov 2004).

              Popular science lectures available online from www.xscite.com/MichaelThompson

 

Sixth Century Professor in Theoretical and Applied Dynamics, Aberdeen

             Part–time (20%), from April 2006, University of Aberdeen.

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