René de Borst (born February 22, 1958) is a Dutch

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

who is known for his work on

computational mechanics Computational mechanics is the discipline concerned with the use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. Before the emergence of computational science (also called scientific computing) as a "third wa ...

and

fracture mechanics Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics t ...

. Since January 2016 he is the Centenary Professor of Civil Engineering at the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

Early life and education

René de Borst obtained an MSc in Civil Engineering in 1982 at

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

(with distinction).

Career

He started his career at TNO and obtained his doctorate in 1986 at

(with distinction). In 1988 he was appointed Professor of Computational Mechanics at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of

, and in 1999 as Professor of Engineering Mechanics at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the same university. In 2000 he was appointed as Distinguished Professor. In 2007 he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Distinguished Professor at

Eindhoven University of Technology The Eindhoven University of Technology (), Abbreviation, abbr. TU/e, is a public university, public technical university in the Netherlands, situated in Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its Bachelor of Science, BS ...

. From 2012 until 2015 he was the

Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics The Regius Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Glasgow was founded in 1840 by Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria. In 1872 the endowment was increased by the bequest of Isabella Elder in memory of her husband ...

at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

. Since January 2016 he is the inaugural holder of The Centenary Chair of Civil Engineering at the

. De Borst has worked on several topics in engineering mechanics and in

materials engineering Materials science is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origi ...

, such as the mechanical properties of concrete, soils, composites, and rubbers, in particular, the development of mathematical and numerical models. His most significant work is on

, and frictional materials. His work is of importance in

civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

structural engineering Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and joints' that create the form and shape of human-made Structure#Load-bearing, structures. Structural engineers also ...

, and

aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

. René de Borst is the author of two books, over 300 publications in archival journals and book chapters, and has supervised over 50 PhD students. He is the editor-in-chief of the ''International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering'' and the ''International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics'', associate editor of the ''Aeronautical Journal'', and editor of a major reference work, the ''Encyclopedia of Computational Mechanics''.

Recognition

He received the Composite Structures Award in 1995, the in 1996 and in 1998 he was presented with the Computational Mechanics Award of the International Association of Computational Mechanics. In 1999 he received the

Spinoza Prize The Spinoza Prize () is an annual award of 1.5 million euro prize money, to be spent on new research given by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The award is the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. It is named after the philosopher Baruc ...

from the

Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research The Dutch Research Council (NWO, Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) is the national research council of the Netherlands. NWO funds thousands of top researchers at universities and institutes and steers the course o ...

. In 2002 he was elected Fellow of the International Association of Computational Mechanics and in 2005 he was elected as Member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

. In 2010 he became Fellow of the International Association for Fracture Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures. In 2011 he received the

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship, known as the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award until 2020, is a 5 years fellowship awarded by the Royal Society since 2000. The scheme is described by the Royal Society as providing ''long-term flexib ...

, and was appointed Officer in the

National Order of Merit (France) National Order of Merit may refer to: * National Order of Merit (Algeria) * National Order of Merit (Bhutan) * National Order of Merit (Brazil) * National Order of Merit (Ecuador) * Ordre national du Mérite (France) * National Order of Merit ...

for his efforts to improve French-Dutch scientific relations. In 2012 he became Fellow of the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a Charitable organization, charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters ar ...

. Since 2013 he is Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

and since 2014 he is a Member of the

European Academy of Sciences and Arts The European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA, ) is a transnational and interdisciplinary network, connecting about 2,000 recommended scientists and artists worldwide, including 38 Nobel Prize laureates. The European Academy of Sciences and ...

. In 2015 he has been awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa of the

Institut national des sciences Appliquées de Lyon The Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (; "Lyon National Institute for Applied Sciences") or INSA Lyon is a French grande école and engineering school. The university is located on the La Doua – LyonTech campus, in a cluster o ...

, he was awarded the Grand Prize of the Japanese Society for Computational Engineering Science (JSCES), was elected as Fellow of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

, and received an Advanced Grant of the

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

. He received the O.C. Zienkiewicz Medal of the Polish Association for Computational Mechanics in 2017 and became an honorary member of the Italian Group of Fracture in 2019. He was elected Fellow of the in 2023.

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Borst, Rene de 1958 births Living people Dutch civil engineers Engineers from The Hague Delft University of Technology alumni Academic staff of the Delft University of Technology Academic staff of the Eindhoven University of Technology Academics of the University of Glasgow Academics of the University of Sheffield Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite Spinoza Prize winners Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders