Reissner, Eric

Biography

Eric Reissner was born in 1913 in Aachen, Germany, the eldest son of Hans Reissner, a pioneer in German aviation. From 1931 to 1936, Reissner attended the Technische Hochschule Berlin, where his father taught applied mechanics. Reissner received a Dipl. Ing. in applied mathematics in 1935 and a Dr. Ing. in civil engineering in 1936, summa cum laude. In response to the political developments in Germany, Reissner accepted a scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went on to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1938. Reissner taught at MIT until his retirement in 1969; he became an American citizen in 1945.

During several summers in the late 1940s and 1950s, Reissner held temporary staff appointments in government and industry including positions at the Langley Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1948, 1951), Ramo-Wooldridge (1954, 1955), and the Palo Alto Research Laboratory of the Lockheed Corporation (1956, 1957). Between 1949 and 1960, Reissner served as Consulting Mathematics Editor for the Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

In 1970, Reissner accepted a professorship at the University of California, San Diego in the growing Department of Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences, where he served as its chairman (1972-1973). He retired from UCSD in 1979 as professor emeritus.

Throughout his career Reissner was awarded many honors. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950, and in 1964, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering from the University of Hannover in Germany for his groundbreaking work in the field of elastomechanics. In 1964, Reissner was also awarded the von Karman Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) awarded Reissner the Timoshenko Medal in 1973 and elected him as an honorary member in 1991. In 1976, he was elected a member of the prestigeous National Academy of Engineering. In 1980, Pergamon Press published an anniversary volume of MECHANICS TODAY dedicated to Reissner on his 65th birthday. In 1984, he received the Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for his contributions to the aerospace community.

Reissner's career was dedicated mainly to research and teaching. He published over 280 articles and books, including a textbook, co-authored with William Martin, on differential equations entitled ELEMENTARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS (1961), and a book of his selected works, published shortly before his death in 1996, entitled SELECTED WORKS IN APPLIED MECHANICS AND MATHEMATICS (1996). During the early part of his career, Reissner's research dealt with the problems of turbulence and aerodynamic wing theory. Later, his research contributions were in the areas of variational principles in the theory of elasticity and linear and non-linear problems concerning the behavior of elastic beams, plates and shells. He is best known for his contributions in the areas of elasticity, stress and strain, and the theory of plates and shells.

Eric Reissner died in 1996.

From the guide to the Eric Reissner Papers, 1930 - 1996, (University of California, San Diego. Geisel Library. Mandeville Special Collections Library.)