Isaac Elishakoff


Isaac Elishakoff is an Israeli-American engineer who is Distinguished Research Professor in the Ocean and Mechanical Engineering Department in the Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida. He is a recognized figure in the area of theoretical and applied mechanics. He has made seminal contributions in the areas of random vibrations, structural reliability, solid mechanics of composite materials, semi-inverse problems of vibrations and stability, functionally graded material structures, optimization and anti-optimization of structures under uncertainty, and carbon nanotubes.
He has over 630 journal papers, and has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited 34 books.

Career

Elishakoff was the Frank M. Freimann Visiting Chair Professor, at the University of Notre Dame, United States in 1985/86 and Henry J. Massman Jr. Visiting Chair Professor, at the same university in 1986/87.
He became a Fellow of American Academy of Mechanics, in 1991 and was Visiting Professor, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy in 2005, 2010, 2017.
He is a Foreign Member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences since 2010, a Member of the European [Academy of Sciences and Arts] since 2011 and a Fellow, ASME since 2011.

Writing

In 2019, Elishakoff described differential equations of love in order to promote love of differential equations by undergraduate students. In 2021, he wrote a response to a joke about the quadratic formula by Stephen Colbert in I Am America (And So Can You!). As of December 1, 2025, these papers have been downloaded 19,588 times.
With J. N. Reddy, Elishakoff has written on solving quadratic equations without resorting to quadratic formula. He also writes educational papers
Elishakoff is interested in the history of science. He has published several articles about Stephen P. Timoshenko, author of numerous textbooks in applied mechanics.

Awards and honors

Elishakoff received the Worcester Reed Warner Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2016.; established in 1930.
In 2021, Elishakoff received the Blaise Pascal Medal in Engineering from the European Academy of Sciences, “to recognize an outstanding and demonstrated personal contribution to science and technology and the promotion of excellence in research and education.” He was simultaneously elected as a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences.
In 2025, he was awarded the ASCE Masanobu Shinozuka Medal for "seminal contributions to random vibrations, reliability, and nonlinear buckling simulation of shells".
In 2021, Professors Noel Challamel, Julius Kaplunov and Izuru Takewaki edited three books titled, Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics, in honor of Elishakoff.

Selected publications

Books

  • I. Elishakoff, Probabilistic Methods in the Theory of Structures, Wiley‑Interscience, New York, 1983, II + pp. 489;.
  • Yakov Ben‑Haim and I. Elishakoff, Convex Models of Uncertainty in Applied Mechanics, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, 1990, XVII + pp. 221;.
  • Gabriel Cederbaum, I. Elishakoff, Jacob Aboudi and Liviu Librescu, Random Vibration and Reliability of Composite Structures, Technomic, Lancaster, 1992, XIII + pp. 191;.
  • I. Elishakoff, Yukweng Lin and Liping Zhu, Probabilistic and Convex Modeling of Acoustically Excited Structures, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, 1994, VIII + pp. 296;.
  • Elishakoff, Yiwei Li and James H. Starnes, Jr., Non‑Classical Problems in the Theory of Elastic Stability, Cambridge University Press, 2001, XVI +pp. 336;.
  • Elishakoff and Yongjian Ren, Large Variation Finite Element Method for Stochastic Problems, Oxford University Press, 2003, IX + pp. 260;.
  • I. Elishakoff, Safety Factors and Reliability: Friends or Foes?, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2004, X + pp. 295;.
  • I. Elishakoff, Eigenvalues of Inhomogeneous Structures: Unusual Closed-Form Solutions of Semi-Inverse Problems, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2005, XIV + pp. 729;.
  • I. Elishakoff and Makoto Ohsaki, Optimization and Anti-Optimization of Structures under Uncertainty, Imperial College Press, London, 2010, XV+ pp. 402;.
  • I. Elishakoff, Resolution of Twentieth Century Conundrum in Elastic Stability, World Scientific/Imperial College Press, Singapore, 2014; pp. 333,.
  • I. Elishakoff, D. Pentaras and C. Gentilini, Mechanics of Functionally Graded Material Structures, World Scientific/Imperial College Press, Singapore; pp. 323,, 2015.
  • I. Elishakoff, Solution Manual to Accompany Probabilistic Methods in the Theory of Structures: Problems with Complete, Worked Through Solutions, World Scientific, Singapore,, 2018.
  • I. Elishakoff, Handbook on Timoshenko-Ehrenfest Beam and Uflyand-Mindlin Plate Theories, World Scientific, Singapore,, 2019.
  • I. Elishakoff, Dramatic Effect of Cross-Correlations in Random Vibrations of Discrete Systems, Beams, Plates, and Shells , Springer, Nature, Switzerland, ISBN 978---3-030-40394-2, 2020.
  • V. Raizer and I. Elishakoff, Philosophies of Structural Safety and Reliability, Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, Hb: 978-1-032-20930-1, 2022.
  • Elishakoff I., Multifaceted Uncertainty Quantification, Berlin, Boston, De Gruyter, ISBN 978-311-135-42-17, 2024.
  • Elishakoff I., S.P. Timoshenko in Perspective, Singapore: World Scientific, 2026.
  • Elishakoff I., Follower Forces in Engineering and Science: Fact or Fantasy?, Singapore: World Scientific, 2026.

Edited volumes

  • I. Elishakoff and Richard H. Lyon,, Random Vibration‑Status and Recent Developments, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, 1986, XX + pp. 565;.
  • I. Elishakoff and Horst Irretier,, Refined Dynamical Theories of Beams, Plates and Shels and their Applications, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1987, XII + pp. 436;.
  • I. Elishakoff, Johann Arbocz, Charles D. Babcock, Jr. and Avinoam Libai,, Buckling of Structures‑Theory and Experiment, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, 1988, XX + pp. 449;.
  • T. Ariaratnam, Gerhart Schuëller, and I. Elishakoff,, Stochastic Structural Dynamics‑Progress in Theory and Applications, Elsevier Applied Science Publishers, London, 1988, XX + pp. 375;.
  • Chuh Mei, Howard F. Wolfe and I. Elishakoff,, Vibration and Behavior of Composite Structures, ASME Press, New York, 1989, V + pp. 73;.
  • Fabio Casciati, I. Elishakoff, and J. Brian Roberts,, Nonlinear Structural Systems under Random Conditions, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, 1990, pp. 386;.
  • Ahmed K. Noor, I. Elishakoff and Greg Hulbert,, Symbolic Computations and Their Impact on Mechanics, ASME Press, New York, 1990, XV + pp. 376;.
  • I. Elishakoff, Whys and Hows in Uncertainty Modeling, Springer, Vienna, 1999, VII + pp. 393,.
  • Alexander P. Seyranian and I. Elishakoff, Modern Problems of Structural Stability, Springer, Vienna, 2002, III + pp. 394,.
  • I. Elishakoff, Mechanical Vibration: Where Do We Stand, Springer, Vienna, 2007, IV + pp. 488,.
  • I. Elishakoff and C. Soize, Non-Deterministic Mechanics, Springer, Vienna, 2012, II+ pp. 356,.