Igor Emri, Slovenian mechanical engineer, * May 22, 1952, Murska Sobota.

 

After graduating from the FS in Ljubljana in 1974, he received his doctorate there in 1981. In 1975, he joined FS in Ljubljana, followed by his election as an assistant professor (1983), associate professor (1988) and full professor (1996) in mechanics. In the years 1979−81, he trained professionally at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (USA). In 1996, he founded the Center for Experimental Mechanics at the Ljubljana Academy of Sciences and became its head. He published articles in the field of experimental mechanics in international scientific journals. He published over 100 original scientific articles and contributions, and three independent scientific works were published in monographs.

 

The field of mechanics of time-dependent materials ("mechanics of time-dependent materials") was founded in 1993 by professors Emri and W. G. Knauss as a section of the American association The Society of Experimental Mechanics. In 1995, they started organizing independent international conferences, the first of which was organized in Ljubljana, and its locations now rotate between the EU, America and Asia.

 

The field of mechanics of time-dependent materials, which was developed by Acad. Emri co-founded, has become one of the key and fastest growing fields of mechanics and will undoubtedly leave an important historical mark in science and industry. In 1997, Springer published the mechanics of time-dependent materials as an important independent field and started publishing the journal Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, whose editor-in-chief has been Academician Emri since the very beginning.

 

In 1983, he received the award of the Boris Kidrič Fund for research achievements in the field of polymer mechanics, and in 1986, the "Rastko Stojanović" award for the best contribution at the conference of the Yugoslav Society of Mechanics. In 1997, as a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, he received the P.L. Kapica award, the B.J. Lazan award for 2010, awarded by the American Society of Experimental Mechanics; prestigious international awards given by the Association for Experimental Mechanics Sia Nemat Nasser Medal (2020); he is also an honored engineer of the Russian Federation. Since 1996, he has been a member of the Engineering Academy of Slovenia, a member of the presidency of the International Academy of Engineering in Moscow-Russia (also elected to its presidency in 2021) and a corresponding member of the American Academy of Mechanics. full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg (2006), the European Academy of Sciences in Liege, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Engineering Academy of Slovenia (1998). He was the first foreigner to be elected president of the American Society for Experimental Mechanics (1999-2000); is an associate member of the American Academy of Mechanics (1997), a member (presidency) of the International Academy of Engineering in Russia, a corresponding member of the American Academy of Mechanics, an associate member of the Institute of non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, Great Britain. In Slovenia, he was appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia in science in 2001 and later a member of SAZU (part-time in 2005, full-time in 2013). Emri is the chairman of the Development Council at SAZU. In 2023, the publishing house Springer published a book dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Igor Emri entitled Advances in Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials.