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Professor Mal received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics/Mechanics from Calcutta University in 1964, did postdoctoral research at UCLA and UC Berkeley during 1964-66, and joined the faculty at UCLA as an Assistant Professor of Engineering in 1967. He became a full professor in 1974. His research interest is in the general area of mechanics of solids with specialization in wave propagation. He has made major research contributions in scattering and diffraction of elastic waves from inclusions, cracks and corners; strong earthquake ground motion; micromechanical theories of wave propagation in fiber-reinforced composites; quantitative nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of composites, thin films and bonded joints; and characterization of materials degradation due to corrosion and fatigue in structural components. His research has been supported by a variety of agencies including the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, McDonnell Douglas Corporation, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center. He has authored or coauthored over 250 journal and conference papers, edited 5 research monographs and made over 125 technical presentations at conferences, seminars and symposia. Professor Mal is currently a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Academy of Mechanics (AAM), American Society for Composites (ASC), American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) and the Society of Optical Engineering (SPIE). He has served on several technical committees of the Applied Mechanics Division of the ASME, as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Mechanics, and has organized a number of ASME symposia. He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Structural Health Monitoring and Subsurface Sensing Technologies and Applications. He was the general chairman of the First Joint Mechanics and Materials Summer Meeting of the ASME held at UCLA in 1995. Professor Mal was a senior Fulbright Fellow in Germany during 1984-85, received a NASA/ASEE Certificate of Recognition for his research in 1992, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. A special symposium was held by his (former and present) students and professional colleagues in his honor at the 1999 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition of the ASME in Nashville. He was awarded the gold medal of the Technical University of Crete, Greece, in recognition of his "Contributions in Science and Technology". Professor Mal received the 2000 NDE Achievement Award of SPIE-The International Society for Optical Engineering, and gave a plenary presentation at the Smart Structures, Materials and NDE Symposium held during March 6 - 10, 2000 in Newport Beach, California. He also received the 2001 Founder's Award form the NDE Division of ASME. He was the “Chief Guest” and plenary speaker at the International Conference on Theoretical, Computational and Experimental Mechanics (ICTACEM) held at IIT Kharagpur, India during December 27-30, 2001. Professor Mal was the principal author of two papers that received the Best Paper Awards at SPIE’s NDE and Health Monitoring Conferences in 2002 and 2003.
