Dr. John Tinsley Oden  founded the Computational Mechanics Company (COMCO) in 1982 to perform advanced research in Computational and Applied Mechanics.

Dr. Oden is a Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, he also holds the Cockrell Family Regents' Chair #2 in Engineering at and is a Director of Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics.  Prior to September 17, 1993 he was the Director of the Texas Institute for Computational Mechanics.  Dr. Oden earned a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from Oklahoma State University in 1962.  He taught at OSU and at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, where he was the Head of the Department of Engineering Mechanics prior to coming to Texas in 1973.  He has held visiting professor positions at other universities in the United States, England, and Brazil.

An author of over 400 scientific publications and author and editor of over forty books and monographs, Dr. Oden has authored or co-authored twenty two books on computational mechanics, finite element methods, applied mathematics, and variational methods and has compiled and edited 23 other volumes in these areas.  His treatise, Finite Elements of Nonlinear Continua, first published in 1972, was translated into Russian in 1976, Japanese in 1980, and Chinese in 1981.  He is an editor of the series, Finite Elements in Flow Problems, and of Computational Methods in Nonlinear Mechanics, a co-author of the treatise, Contact Problems in Elasticity, published in 1988, and the six-volume series, Finite Elements.  Among his other works are An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Finite Elements and several textbooks, including Applied Functional Analysis and Mechanics of Elastic Structures.

Dr. Oden is a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.  He was awarded a medal and the title "Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques" by the French government in 1990 for his contributions to the French Scientific Community.  In 1986, Dr. Oden was awarded an honorary doctorate, the Doctor Honoris Causa, by the Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.  Dr. Oden received the Walter Huber Research Prize for distinguished research contributions by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1973, the SECTAM Research Award from the Southeastern Conference on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 1978, the Carol and Henry Groppe Professorship in Engineering at Texas in 1979, the Billy and Claude R. Hocott Award for Distinguished Engineering Research in 1987, and was the recipient of the Ernest and Virginia Cockrell Chair in Engineering in 1987 at The University of Texas.  In 1990 he was awarded the A.C. Eringen Medal by the Society of Engineering Science in recognition of sustained and outstanding achievements in engineering science  and the Worcester Reed Warner Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for distinguished contributions to the literature in computational and theoretical mechanics, and particularly for his internationally recognized treatise, Finite Elements of Nonlinear Continua as well as his pioneering papers on finite elements in fluids.  In 1991, Oden was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in Mexico and received from Oklahoma State University the first Lohmann Medal in recognition of his distinguished contributions to the literature in computational and theoretical mechanics, continuum mechanics, and structural mechanics. Professor Oden is the 1992 recipient of the Theodore von Karman Medal of the ASCE for numerous distinguished and seminal contributions in engineering mechanics, particularly related to nonlinear analysis finite element and computational methods, and for worthy administrative service to the profession.  In 1993 he was awarded the John von Neumann medal by  the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics.  He received the Computational Mechanics award for the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1993.  In 1994, Oden was awarded the Newton/Gauss Congress Medal by the International Association for Computational Mechanics.  Oden also received the Joe J. King Professional Engineering achievement award in 1994 from the University of Texas in recognition of exemplary service and demonstrated leadership in advancing the profession of engineering. In 1996 he was awarded the prestigious Timoshenko Medal by the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics.

Dr. Oden serves on the editorial board of twenty international journals.  Presently he is Editor-in-Chief of Computational Mechanics Advances a monograph series, and a U.S. Editor of Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Engineering Science  and he serves on the editorial boards of the SIAM Journal of Scientific Computing and Statistics, the Journal of Numerical Functional Analysis and Optimization, The International Journal of Numerical Methods in Engineering, and several other international journals.

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics, a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science, and a Fellow of the British Institute for Mathematics and its Applications.  He is a Past President of the Society of Engineering Science and of the American Academy of Mechanics.  He is a Founding Member of both the International Association for Computational Mechanics and the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics.  He served as President of the IACM from 1990-1994 and is also a Past-President of USACM.  He has served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Engineering Mechanics Division of the ASCE and as  Chairman of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, a committee within the U.S. National Research Council.  He has served on numerous other national committees within technical and professional societies.