Michael Todd, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Structural Engineering at UC San Diego, was recently honored with the Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). This recognition, part of the Smart Structures and Nondestructive Evaluation section, celebrates the remarkable contributions of individuals in the field.
“It is quite humbling to join previous recipients of this prestigious award that celebrates career achievements in NDE. I have made a career out of NDE and structural health monitoring in general because those areas pull together so many diverse fields–and there’s still always something to learn!” Todd said.
With a prolific career boasting over 550 publications and six patents, Todd has garnered numerous accolades, including the 1999 Alan Berman NRL Publication Award, the 2003 and 2004 NRL Patent Award, the 2005 Structural Health Monitoring Person of the Year Award, the 2016 Society of Experimental Mechanics DeMichele Award, and the 2021 Structural Health Monitoring Lifetime Achievement Award. He was recently appointed a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Mechanics.
Together with Los Alamos National Laboratory, Todd pioneered the nation's first graduate degree program in structural health monitoring, damage prognosis, and validated simulations. He serves as the Managing Editor of Structural Health Monitoring: An International Journal and contributes to the editorial board of the Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring.
Todd's research has been developed for a wide array of systems, spanning the civil, mechanical, and aerospace domains, including the I-10 Bridge in Las Cruces, New Mexico (among others) and the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship 2. His expertise synthesizes sensing/data, diagnostic analytics, and predictive modeling to facilitate the continuous monitoring of structural health and predict future performance. By leveraging dynamics (acoustic and ultrasonic domains), time series modeling, physical modeling, machine learning, and uncertainty quantification, Todd and his team devise optimal strategies for the life cycle management of structures. Moreover, he has pioneered optical sensing techniques for precise field measurements in composite materials and additively manufactured specimens.
Todd earned his Ph.D. from Duke University's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Before joining UC San Diego in 2003, he spent seven years at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, where he served as the Head of Fiber Optic Smart Structures.