The meeting of the Evaluation Committee for the ECCOMAS Award for the Best PhD Theses 2008
was held on May 4th, 2009 at CIMNE, Barcelona. As an answer to the call for tender, 14 theses
were nominated by the ECCOMAS member associations. The Evaluation Committee was composed by
N.E. Wiberg (chairman), G. Maier, H. Deconinck, R. Rannacher and P. Díez (secretary).

After a detailed discussion, a secret voting was held in two phases. First, after a secret
voting the number of thesis was reduced from 14 to 6. Then the committee ranked the 6 theses
evaluating the different aspects of each and unanimously agreed on selecting 2 out of these
6 theses as the winners.

The two winners are:
. Dr Stéphanie Chaillat (France) for the thesis "Fast multipole method for 3D elastodynamic
boundary integral equations. Application to seismic wave propagation"

. Dr. Tomasz Koziara (UK) for the thesis "Aspects of comp! utational contact dynamics"

These theses are outstanding works in Computational Methods combining excellent knowledge of
both theory and practice.

All nominees will be recognized by a special diploma that will be sent directly to the candidate. 

On behalf of ECCOMAS we would like to thank you for your cooperative efforts in this selection process. 

Nils-Erik Wiberg
President of the Evaluation
Committee for the ECCOMAS PhD Award