500 Christensen

This interview is with Richard M. Christensen, Professor Emeritus of Applied Science.  He was appointed in Applied Science, which at that time was a cooperative program between UC Davis and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Before coming to Davis, Dr. Christensen worked in the aerospace industry, was an engineer at Shell, and taught at the University of Southern California, the University of California, Berkeley, among others. His work is focused on those circumstances wherein materials shift from safe or acceptable states of stress to states of failure. As a measure of his success, Professor Emeritus Christensen was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1987. Other awards and honors include the Worcester Reed Warner Gold Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the William Prager Medal for Research in solid mechanics from the Society of Engineering Science. In 1992, he was installed as an Honorary Member of ASME, the highest honor conferred by that organization, recognizing lifetime achievement. Later, he was awarded the ASME’s Nadai Medal to recognize his many accomplishments in materials engineering. He is interviewed by his friend and colleague, Yin Yeh, Professor Emeritus of Applied Science..