Ares Rosakis Elected Fellow of the Royal Society
Professor Ares Rosakis, Theodore von Karman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, was formally inducted as a Foreign Member to the Royal Society in a ceremony held on July 10, 2026. His 2024 election marked the first time a Caltech professor of mechanics and of mechanical engineering was elected to the Royal Society.
The citation reads: "Rosakis is an interdisciplinary engineer who invented multiple high-speed, optical and infrared diagnostic methods for studying dynamic fracture, shear localization and impact phenomena at all length and time scales, enabling his experimental discoveries of Intersonic fracture and delamination in composites and of Super-shear rupture in frictional geological faults. He pioneered the use of Laboratory Earthquakes and scaling to resolve paradoxes in earthquake science and to study earthquakes worldwide."
His election brings the number of fellows and foreign members of the Royal Society currently on the Caltech faculty to six. Caltech also has one of the highest concentrations of current Royal Society members among U.S. universities.
Ares Rosakis signed with ceremonial pen and ink the historic Royal Society Charter Book, also signed by scientific luminaries such as Robert Boyle, Robert Hook, Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Lord Rayleigh, Lord Rutherford, CV Raman, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.
