Since 1982 a bronze medal and a cash prize have been awarded annually by the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM) for an outstanding doctoral thesis in rock mechanics or rock engineering, to honour the memory of Past President Manuel Rocha while stimulating young researchers.

From the ISRM news release following its Council meeting on October 13th, 2014 in Sapporo, Japan, we have learned that the recipient for 2015 is Geomechanica’s own Dr. Andrea Lisjak Bradley. A PDF of Dr. Lisjak’s Ph.D. Thesis entitled “Investigating the Influence of Mechanical Anisotropy on the Fracturing Behaviour of Brittle Clay Shales with Application to Deep Geological Repositories” can be downloaded here . Dr. Lisjak will be awarded the medal at the 13th ISRM Congress on Rock Mechanics in Montreal (May 10-13, 2015) where he will also present a summary of his research.

Dr. Lisjak joins an impressive list of previous recipients that have made significant contributions to the field of rock mechanics and rock engineering. We at Geomechanica congratulate Dr. Lisjak, an invaluable member of our numerical modelling team, on this prestigious achievement.