Citation for Dr. Vivien Challis

The 2024 JH Michell Medal has been awarded to Dr. Vivien Challis in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queensland University of Technology.

Dr. Challis has seven years FTE since PhD completion in 2009. Two years 9 months were in a postdoc fellowship, and the remainder were as lecturer and senior lecturer at UQ and QUT, with the usual teaching loads. There were multiple interruptions of ser- vice due to maternity leave and part-time positions since 2012. Challis’ research includes ground-breaking leadership in topology optimisation of material microstructures and ad- vanced large-scale computation, involving a range of areas including elasticity, Stokes flow, electromagnetism and generalised derivatives. Applications to 3D printing and de- sign improvements in robotic sensors are directly implementable. The work Challis leads is seminal, inspiring, and strongly connected to industrial and technology interests.

Challis has 21 publications in high-quality international journals like the International Journal of Numerical Methods in Computing, Acta Materiala, and the International Jour- nal for Solids and Structures, with over 1600 citations. Two publications are in the top 2.5% for citations in InCites. There is strong evidence of leadership in research in Challis’ publications. The most highly cited paper is one with sole authorship. Many publications have Challis as lead author or corresponding author.