Professor J.N. Reddy, Honorary Member of the Engineering Division of EURASC, is recently elected to two different national academies. He is elected as the Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain. The Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) is the national academy of the People’s Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China. The CAE and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are often referred to together as the “Two Academies”. The Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain (Real Academia de Ingeniería, RAI) promotes works and studies that reflect scientific progress in the field of engineering, its technological applications and its operational techniques.
Professor Reddy is the inaugural holder of the Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. Endowed Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. In 1998 he was appointed as the University Distinguished Professor (only top 2% of the university faculty hold this honor); he was named as the Regents’ Professor in 2010. His pioneering works on the development of shear deformation theories (that bear his name in the literature as the Reddy third-order plate theory and the Reddy layerwise theory) have had a major impact and have led to new research developments and applications. Another profound contribution of Professor Reddy has been in education and knowledge that impacted the educational and professional lives of scoreless young people around the world through his text books, short courses, and workshops.
His collaborations in Europe are extremely strong. In particular, he has been a research collaborator/seminar speaker in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, U.K., Finland, and Germany many times (e.g., Politecnico di Torino, University of Parma, University of Bologna, University of Campania, University of Roma, University of Calabria, University of Naples, Oxford University, University of Swansea, University of Stuttgart, University of Wuppertal, Aalto University, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, University of Zaragoza, University of Porto, and University of Lisbon), working with local researches on shell theories for laminated composite structures. As a result of this extensive collaboration, he published many journal papers and books with European co-authors. Also, his collaboration in Italy, Spain, and Portugal have been very extensive and it continues to this day. In addition, Professor Reddy served as advisor and/or external committee member of PhD students in U.K., Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. Dr. Reddy also presented several short courses and organized a NATO Advanced Study Institute on finite elements and composite materials and structures in various places in Europe.
Professor Reddy served Chinese structural engineering community with research collaborations and teaching of short courses and conducting workshops and conferences for over 25 years. In fact, he was a member of the first delegation of researchers from the USA who attended the International Conference on Finite Element Methods, August 2-6, 1982, Shanghai. Since his first visit to China in 1982, he came to China many times, and in recent times almost every year, to give lectures and conduct short courses. Some of the universities he has developed collaborations with and/or delivered lectures include: Beihang University, Beijing; South China University of Technology, Guangzhou; Jilin University, Nanling Campus, Changchun; Shanghai University, Shanghai; Chongqing University; Xi’an Jiaotong University; Shanghai Jiaotong University; Wuhan University; Southeast University, Nanjing; China Academy of Sciences, Beijing; Tsinghua University, Beijing; Tongji University, Shanghai; Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen; Dalian University of Technology; University of Science and Technology of China; East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), Shanghai; Zhejiang University, Hangzhou; Guangdong Institute of Intelligent Manufacturing, Guangzhou; University of Macau; and City University of Hong Kong. He holds several honorary appointments at various Chinese Universities: Qiushi Chair Professor of Zhejiang University; Honorary Professor, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics; Guest Professor, Guangdong Institute of Intelligent Manufacturing, Guangzhou; and Advisory Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, Oct. 2019.