Robert O. Ritchie

Citation: "For outstanding contributions to the fundamental understanding of fatigue performance of advanced structural materials including metal-matrix composites for defense and commercial applications."

Biography: Robert O. Ritchie is a professor of materials science in the Department of Materials Science and Mineral Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. He earned his B.S. in physics and metallurgy and his M.S. and Ph.D. in materials science from Cambridge University in 1964, 1973, and 1973, respectively. He earned his Sc.D. in 1990 from Cambridge University. Before joining the University of California, he was an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the Center for Advanced Materials and head of the Structural Materials Department at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He has authored or coauthored more than 275 papers and nine books. He was named one of America's top 100 young scientists by Science Digest in 1984 and has received numerous honors and awards.