International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 152 (2020) 119401

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/hmt

In Celebration

Professor James V. Beck on his 90th birthday

On May 18, 2020, James V. Beck celebrates his 90th birthday.
For 60 years, Professor Beck has made outstanding contributions asa scholar and teacher. He is a well-respected and prominent contributor to several scientiﬁc and engineering communities within
the United States and internationally, especially in the areas ofparameter estimation, solutions to inverse problems, and Green’s
functions applied to conduction heat transfer. Professor Beck continues to publish regularly on heat conduction, parameter estimation and inverse problems. Jim balances his enthusiasm for research with his dedication to his wife, Barbara, and to their children and grandchildren.
Professor Beck received his B.S. degree from Tufts University in
1956, S.M. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1957, and Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1964, all in
Mechanical Engineering. He was a Senior Staff Scientist at AVCO
Research and Advanced Development in Massachusetts from 1957
until 1962. He then joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering At MSU in 1962 as an instructor, rising to professor in 1971. His
many former graduate students play prominent roles in academia,
research laboratories, and in government. Currently, he is Professor
Emeritus at MSU. Professor Beck has enjoyed sabbatical leaves atSandia National Laboratories and in Europe.
As a pioneer in the ﬁeld of inverse problems in heat transfer, Professor Beck has exerted leadership to foster an international
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2020.119401
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community in this ﬁeld. The Inverse Problems in Engineering Seminars were initiated at MSU in 1988 through his impetus. These
informal meetings continue to attract scholars from around theworld to universities around the USA and Europe. A collaboration
with Jean-Pierre Bardon starting in 1982 has continued ever since.
In 1993, they instigated a meeting at ISITEM (Institut des Sciencesde IÍngénieur en Thermique-Energétique et Matériaux) within theUniversity of Nantes, which resulted in the creation of the International Conference on Inverse Problems in Engineering and inthe creation of the French group METTI (Métrologie Thermique etTechniques Inverses). In 1990, Professor Beck led a delegation ofparticipants to the First International Conference on Inverse Problems in Suzdal, USSR. In 1992, Professor Beck organized the visit ofa large delegation of Russian scientists to the USA as participantsof his IPE Seminar and the ﬁve-day 1st American–Russian workshop on Inverse Problems sponsored by the US NSF. Four years
later, in 1994, he jointly organized the second conference in thisseries in St. Petersburg, Russia, with O.M. Alifanov of the Moscow
Aviation Institute. The workshop fostered collaborations between
specialists in the ﬁeld of inverse phenomena from many countries.
These efforts have led to a large number of publications, presentations, and successful students scattered across the globe. The Sixth
International Conference on Inverse Problems in Samara, Russia(May 2–7, 2010) was dedicated to Professor James V. Beck’s 80thbirthday. Also, the 10th International Conference on Inverse Problems in Engineering (ICIPE 2020; http://icipe20.univaq.it), Francavilla al Mare (Chieti), Italy (May 18–21, 2020), is dedicated to him.
Professor Beck has authored more than 150 archival journal articles and ﬁve book chapters, as well as countless technical presentations. Many of his publications have been collaborations madepossible by his lifelong search for people who share his enthusiasm for discovery. Professor Beck is the primary author of three
graduate level textbooks: Parameter Estimation in Engineering andScience, with K.J. Arnold (Wiley, 1977); Inverse Heat Conduction: Illposed Problems, with Ben Blackwell and Charles R. St. Clair, Jr. (Wiley, 1985); Heat Conduction Using Green’s Functions, with K.D. Cole,A. Haji-Sheikh, and B. Litkouhi (Hemisphere, 1992). Also, he is thesecondary author of the second edition of Heat Conduction Using
Green’s Functions book (Cole, Beck, Haji-Sheikh, and Litkouhi, Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, 2010). The book Inverse Heat Conduction:
Ill-posed Problems has been translated into Russian and publishedby Mir Publishing in 1989; it is very popular among Russian students and specialists in the ﬁeld of inverse problems.
In addition to his unique contributions and leadership in various topics, he has been a very productive and valuable teammember. As a contributor to the EXACT project (www.exact.unl.
edu) funded by the US NSF in 2012, Professor Beck provided

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numerous heat conduction solutions and accompanying computercodes for planar and cylindrical bodies, ﬁnite and semi-inﬁnite,one- and multi-dimensional, for short- and large-times. He has
published recently on new concepts such as complementary experiments and generalized transient solutions in heat conduction.
Active in the Heat Transfer Division of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers, Professor Beck has been a Fellow of ASME
since 1988. He served as Associate Technical Editor for the ASME
Journal of Heat Transfer and as Associate Editor for Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering. Professor Beck was awarded theASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 1998, and later served asthe Chair of the Heat Transfer Division’s Honors and Awards Committee. Other awards include the MSU Distinguished Faculty Award(1987) and the Tufts University Department of Mechanical Engineering Award for Outstanding Achievement in Mechanical Engineering Practice (1991).
Professor Beck has brought several international researchers
into his research group at Michigan State, resulting in several
long-term collaborations and many friendships. The French group
METTI, strongly supported by Jim Beck, was the result of a longcollaboration between him and thermal engineering teams of several universities including Paris VI, Nantes, Lyon, Nancy, Poitiers,Marseille, etc. This collaboration started in 1982 and has continued ever since, prompting Jim Beck to come to France on several
occasions to give talks and bring French researchers into his teamat MSU. For this reason Jim Beck is very well known, appreciated,and respected in the French heat transfer community.
On the occasion of his 90th birthday, and on behalf of hisgreat many friends, former students, and colleagues worldwide, wewish Professor Beck a resounding Happy 90th Birthday with manythanks for all of his valuable contributions, outstanding service,leadership, and, especially, his friendship. We wish Professor Beckand his family many happy years of continued prosperity and great
health!

Oleg M. Alifanov
Donald E. Amos
Jean-Pierre Bardon
Ben Blackwell
Kevin D. Cole
Filippo de Monte∗
Kirk D. Dolan
Kevin J. Dowding
A. Haji-Sheikh
Ned R. Keltner
Robert L. McMasters IV
Wally J. Minkowycz
Aleksey Nenarokomov
Elaine P. Scott
Keith A. Woodbury
Neil T. Wright
Tim S. Zhao
Dharmendra K. Mishra
Department of Industrial and Information Engineering andEconomics, University of L’Aquila, Via G. Gronchi n. 18, 67100
L’Aquila, Italy∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ﬁlippo.demonte@univaq.it (F. de Monte)

Available online 28 January 2020