International Society for the Interaction of Mechanics and Mathematics


The International Society for the Interaction of Mechanics and Mathematics is an association of professional mathematicians and mechanicians dedicated to promote the beneficial influence of each of these disciplines on the other. ISIMM organizes regular meetings and launches publications both as proceedings and as separate textbooks or monographs. Membership is subjected to a recommendation by three members of ISIMM.

History and concept in brief

ISIMM was founded in 1977 in Kozubnik in Southern Poland. Historically, there had been a planning period before that time which had culminated in a meeting in Lecce, Apulia, Italy two years earlier. That meeting was organized by Gaetano Fichera along with some of his colleagues from Rome and with Polish colleagues. At that time the Cold War was still on for scientists from different sides of the iron curtain it was not altogether easy to meet; Russian scientists, in particular, found it difficult to obtain a passport for going to a western country; but less so, if they were invited by a scientific society. Hence the idea of ISIMM came naturally, a society with an impressive constitution and with the backing of a truly international group of scientists from all over the world, even though the European element was predominant.
It its early years, the Society represented a European counterpart of The Society for Natural Philosophy founded in 1963 by Clifford Truesdell. ISIMM is presently a member of IUTAM . According to its constitution, the Society seeks also cooperation with other existing international organizations such as IMU, the SIAM, or the ICIAM which includes also some other learned societies as GAMM, IMA, or SMAI.

Representatives

Over the years the officers of the Society – president, vice president, secretary – were:
ISIMM organizes regularly bi-annual meetings. The meetings are called STAMM, Symposia on Trends in Application of Mathematics to Mechanics. A list of the Symposia follows together with the names of the organizers, or the main organizer, in brackets:
A great part of the STAMM meetings gave rise to proceedings volumes:
Apart from this, a book series IMM by Springer is conducted by this society.

Prizes

Since the 2010 STAMM Meeting, the award is given once in two years at the regular STAMM conferences. The recipient of the prize is expected to have made exceptional contributions towards building a link between Mathematics and Mechanics:
Apart of this, also the ISIMM Junior Prize has been established. The awardees are: