Jonathan (Jon) Stergiou

Award: Solberg (Research)
Year: 2020
Recipient: Jonathan (Jon) Stergiou

for his significant contribution to naval engineering as set forth by the following 

CITATION: 

Jon Stergiou has substantially advanced the Navy’s modeling and simulation capabilities in determining weapons effects on ships and vehicles of interest to the Navy. These new capabilities can be effectively employed during ship design to make the Navy’s warships more cost effective while significantly reducing the Navy’s dependence on after-the-fact, highly expensive, highly time consuming, highly political full-scale tests. Mr. Stergiou has pioneered a new and critical area of naval engineering research in developing advanced physics-based analytic design methods for quickly predicting ship structural response and damage due to impulsive structural loadings from a wide range of weapons effects and survivability characteristics unique to warships. 

During Jon Stergiou’s tenure as the NESM Product Lead, he managed the entirety of the CREATE Ships Shock/Damage projects, interfaced with the sponsoring activity, and oversaw a team of engineers and computer scientist distributed across the country at different organizations. His success in this leadership role contributed to his receipt of the 2015 NSWCCD Command Award for Outstanding Achievement. Jon personally led the planning and execution of the NESM modeling and simulation development program which includes the NESM software suite, the Navy Energetic Modeling Oracle (NEMO) shock physics code. 

Due to the dedication and leadership of Mr. Stergiou, NESM is now being used in new US Navy ship acquisition programs at a time when the Navy’s fleet force structure is in dire, immediate need of repair. Jon Stergiou’s exceptional and outstanding contributions to advancing the state-of-the-art computational structural mechanics will aid the Navy’s senior Flag Officers in making difficult, timely trade-off decisions concerning military capabilities such as ship survivability and affordability, and will accelerate the design, construction, and delivery of critically needed warships. 

Jon Stergiou had a revolutionary impact on the design, acquisition, and performance of Navy warships, and was a role model for what a good leader should be like in the workplace. Research is everchanging and evolving, and Mr. Stergiou’s research will continue to be one to admire. Based on his past and continued contributions to research, ASNE is proud to present Mr. Jonathan Stergiou the Society's 2020 Solberg Award.