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The Economics Institute Supports the Candidacy of Jiří Plešek for the Position of President of the CAS

17 September, 2024

The Economics Institute of the CAS has joined the proposal of the Institute of Thermomechanics of the CAS and will support Ing. Jiří Plešek, CSc., Deputy Director of the Institute of Thermomechanics in his candidacy for the position of President of the CAS for the term of office 2025-2029.

Jiří Plešek graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in 1984, majoring in Applied Mechanics. He then worked at the State Research Institute for Machine Building in Prague-Běchovice. There he developed programs and numerical algorithms for the use of the finite element method in mechanics, which he later installed and optimized on Cray computers. In 1992, he received the degree of Candidate of Science from the then Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1993, he founded a private company with several colleagues, where he worked on temperature, stress and seismic calculations of mechanical components, especially for nuclear power plant equipment. Since 1997 he has been employed at the Institute of Thermomechanics of the CAS. He was Head of the Department of Shocks and Waves in Solids from 2003-2007, Deputy Director from 2007-2012 and Director of the Institute from 2013-2021.

Since 1998 he has also been working at CTU. Currently, he teaches two semester courses at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering; Continuum Mechanics since 2002 and Plasticity and Creep since 2011. He has supervised 11 PhD students. He is a member of three doctoral study councils and honorary chairman of the Scientific Council of the Research Centre Řež. Since 2017 he has been a member of the Board of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic. In 2015-2021 he coordinated the research programme of the AV21 Strategy Efficient Energy Conversion and Storage.

His work focuses on computational mechanics and its applications in the fields of impact dynamics, vibrations and shock wave propagation. His main field is the solution of geometrically and materially nonlinear continuum mechanics problems, especially metal plasticity and creep of materials at high temperatures. He has been involved in dozens of strength calculations for power equipment.

In his role as a member of the Academic Council of the CAS, he focuses on the coordination and development of the programs and activities of the AV21 Strategy, including grant management in this area.