IMR Award Winners

This record is incomplete with missing awards marked as unknown. We appreciate any help from the community to complete this page, both for empty unknown lines and for incomplete ones. To do so please contact the current conference or website chair.

Lifetime Achievement Award

A rare award given for distinguished lifetime contribution to the IMR.

Year Winner Affiliation
2018 Ted Blacker Sandia National Laboratories

IMR Fellow

The IMR Fellow Award recognizes an individual that has demonstrated significant support for the IMR over many years through activities such as presenting papers, presenting short courses, presenting invited talks, reviewing papers, participating in panel discussions, and serving on the Organizing and/or Steering Committees. The recipient shall have attended the IMR at least five times and must attend the conference in which the award is granted. Anyone can nominate a candidate. The combined IMR Steering and Organizing Committee members vote on the submitted candidates.

Year Winner Affiliation
2011 Kenji Shimada Carnegie Mellon University
2012 Mark Shephard Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
2013 Steve Owen Sandia National Laboratories
2014 Paul Louis George INRIA
2015 Tim Tautges CD-adapco
2016 Matt Staten Sandia National Laboratories
2017 David Marcum Mississippi State University
2018 Cecil Armstrong Queen's University Belfast
2019 Pat Knupp Sandia National Laboratories
2021 Suzanne Shontz University of Kansas
2022 Scott Mitchell Sandia National Laboratories
2023 Nilanjan Mukherjee Siemens
2024 Nikos Chrisochoides Old Dominion University
2025 Yongjie Jessica Zhang Carnegie Mellon University
2026 Scott Canann Siemens

Best Technical Paper

Best technical paper as voted on by the Organizing Committee. The Papers Chair leads the discussion and vote, starting from review ratings of the papers.

Year Winner Affiliation Title
2010 unknown - -
2011 Jonathan Makem, Cecil Armstrong and Trevor Robinson Queen's University Belfast Automatic Decomposition and Efficient Semi-Structured Meshing of Complex Solids
2012 Nicolas Kowalski, Franck Ledoux and Pascal Frey CEA & UPMC Univ Paris PDE Based Approach to Multi-Domain Partition and Quadrilateral Meshing
2013 F. Alauzet and D. Marcum INRIA, Mississippi State University A Closed Advancing-layer Method With Changing Topology Mesh Movement for Viscous Mesh Generation
2014 Daniel Sieger, Stefan Menzel and Mario Botsch Bielefeld University, Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH Constrained Space Deformation for Design Optimization
2015 A. Loseille, F. Alauzet and V. Menier INRIA Parallel Generation of Large-size Adapted Meshes
2016 Franco Dassi, Lennard Kamenski and Hang Si Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics Tetrahedral Mesh Improvement using Moving Mesh Smoothing and Lazy Searching Flips
2017 Vladimir A. Garanzha and Liudmila N. Kudryavtseva Dorodnicyn Computing Center Hyperelastic springback technique for construction of prismatic mesh layers
2018 Kilian Verhetsel, Jeanne Pellerin and Jean-François Remacle Université Catholique de Louvain A 66-Element Mesh of Schneiders' Pyramid: Bounding the Difficulty of Hex-Meshing Problems
2019 Flavien Boussuge, Christopher M. Tierney, Trevor T. Robinson and Cecil G. Armstrong Queen's University Belfast Application of Tensor Factorisation to Analyse Similarities in CAD Assembly Models
2021 Scott Mitchell, Patrick Knupp, Sarah C. Mackay and Michael F. Deakin Sandia National Laboratories, Dihedral Not so HOT Triangulations
2022 Paul Zhang, Judy Chiang, Xinyi Fan and Klara Mundilova MIT Local Decomposition of Hexahedral Singular Nodes into Singular Curves
2023 Xi Zou, Sui Bun Lo, Rubén Sevilla, Oubay Hassan and Jason Jones Swansea University Towards a volume mesh generator tailored for NEFEM
2024 Henriette Lipschütz, Ulrich Reitebuch, Konrad Polthier, Martin Skrodzki Freie Universität Berlin, TU Delft Manifold Meshing of Point Clouds with Guaranteed Smallest Edge Length
2025 Payam Khanteimouri, Marcel Campen Osnabrück University C1-Smooth Parametrization of Polynomial Shapes over Polygonal Domains
2026 Ketan Mittal, Veselin Dobrev, Tzanio Kolev, Vladimir Tomov High-Order Mesh r-Adaptivity with Tangential Relaxation and Guaranteed Mesh Validity

Best Student Paper

Best technical paper whose primary author is a student, as voted on by the Organizing Committee. The Papers Chair leads the discussion and vote, starting from review ratings of the papers.

Year Winner Affiliation Title
2015 Nadja Goerigk and Hang Si On Indecomposable Polyhedra and The Number of Steiner Points
2016 Liang Sun, Christopher Tierney, Cecil Armstrong and Trevor Robinson Automatic decomposition of complex thin walled CAD models for hexahedral dominant meshing
2017 unknown - -
2018 unknown - -
2019 Rémi Feuillet, Olivier Coulaud and Adrien Loseille Anisotropic error estimate for high-order parametric surface mesh generation
2023 Callum Lock Predicting the near-optimal mesh spacing for a simulation using machine learning
2024 Kaloyan S Kirilov, Joaquim Peiró, Jingtian Zhou, Mashy D Green, David Moxey High-order curvilinear mesh generation from third-party meshes
2025 Hua Tong, Yongjie Jessica Zhang Fast and Robust Hexahedral Mesh Optimization via Augmented Lagrangian, L-BFGS, and Line Search
2026 Nathan Tihon, Jonathan Lambrechts, Jean-François Remacle Robust and Efficient 3D alpha-shapes on GPU

Best Presentation of Research Note/Abstract

New award given to the best presenter of a research note/abstract, i.e. a short paper describing new ideas, exploratory research, preliminary results, corrections or updates to previously published research in the field of meshing.

Year Winner Affiliation Title
2022 Steven Owen, Armida Carbajal, Corey Ernst, Matthew Peterson and Timothy Shead Machine Learning Classification for Rapid CAD-to-Simulation
2023 Daniel Shapero An ergonomic approach to topological transformations of unstructured meshes
2024 Alexandre Chemin The eXteme Mesh Deformation Approach (X-Mesh) Applied to the Porous Medium Equation
2025 Nathan Tihon, Jean-François Remacle, Jonathan Lambrechts Direct Alpha-Shape on the GPU
2026 Tim Gabriel, Jean-François Remacle, Christophe Geuzaine Intrinsic Surface Meshing Using Geodesic Distances

Best Student Research Note

Awarded to the student with the best research note/abstract, i.e. a short paper describing new ideas, exploratory research, preliminary results, corrections or updates to previously published research in the field of meshing.

Year Winner Affiliation Title
2026 Alice Novell-Mazzara, Julia Docampo-Sánchez, Guillaume Houzeaux, Abel Gargallo-Peiró Level-Set-Based Actuator Disc Modeling for Adaptive Wind Farm Simulations

Best Technical Poster

Best technical poster presented in the Poster Session, covering a new development in the area of mesh generation. All IMR attendees vote for the winner. Winners should be chosen based on contribution to the field of mesh generation, as well as on the presentation of that technology.

Year Winner Affiliation Title
2000 Michael Hancock, Ashish Das, Debashis Basu, Jean Cabello and Nilanjan Mukherjee EDS Unigraphics Full Cycle Geometry-MESH Synthesis/Abstraction
2001 Ted Blacker Fluent
2002 unknown - -
2003 Ashish Das EDS Unigraphics
2004 unknown - -
2005 unknown - -
2006 unknown - -
2007 unknown - -
2008 unknown - -
2009 unknown - -
2010 unknown - -
2011 unknown - -
2012 Jean Hsiang-Chun Lu Geometric Reasoning in Sketch-Based Volumetric Decomposition Framework for Hex Meshing
2013 P.L. George, F. Alauzet, H. Borouchaki, P. Laug, A. Loseille, L. Maréchal, N. Barral, E. Mbinky and V. Menier Gamma 3 Meshing Technologies
2014 unknown - -
2015 unknown - -
2016 unknown - -
2017 unknown - -
2018 A. Kolasinski
2019 A. Kolasinski
2021 unknown - -
2022 Tatyana Zaitseva and V. Yu. Protasov Bear-Subdivision Algorithms for Generating Smooth Surfaces
2023 Thomas Shannon, Trevor Robinson, Cecil Armstrong, Declan Nolan, Gordon Kalwak Identifying the “Minimum Meshable Representation” in Turbomachinery Geometries
2024 Hua Tong, Eni Halilaj, Yongjie Jessica Zhang HybridOctree_Hex - Hybrid Octree-Based Adaptive All-Hexahedral Mesh Generation with Jacobian Control
2025 Robert Schneiders, Andreas Schulz, Jan Thomsen Automatic Multi-Material Mesh Generation for the Simulation of Metal Casting Processes
2026 Theresa Pollinger Omnitrees for Efficient Dyadic Discretizations

Best Student Poster

Best technical poster presented by a student in the Poster Session.

Year Winner Affiliation Title
2001 Mike Borden BYU
2011 Shankar Prasad Sastry The Pennsylvania State University
2013 Victorien Menier and Adrien Loseille Parallel Mesh Adaptation
2026 Brieuc Praud, Jérôme Breil, Antoine Lemoine, Laurent Muscat Feature-Based Mesh Adaptation for Hypersonic Flow Simulations

Meshing Contest (a.k.a. Meshing Maestro)

The Meshing Maestro Award is given to the winner of the Meshing Contest. It is given to the poster of a mesh that the IMR attendees would like to see on their T-shirt the next year (for when/if there are T-shirts). Otherwise, it ends up on proceedings covers, etc. As such, this award is more aesthetic than technical. The Organizing Committee is responsible each year to find and share a model for the contest and to post it on the IMR website. A good deal of freedom is given on how to mesh the given model with respect to the meshing algorithm(s) used. The Meshing Contest Posters are displayed in the Poster Session, covering a new development in the area of mesh generation. All IMR attendees vote for the winner.

Year Winner Affiliation Topic
2001 Ted Blacker Fluent
2002 unknown - -
2003 unknown - -
2004 unknown - -
2005 unknown - -
2006 unknown - -
2007 Rafael Montenegro Armas University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Map of globe showing Africa and Europe
2008 Yasushi Ito University of Alabama, Birmingham
2009 unknown - -
2010 Mohamed Ebeida Sandia National Laboratories
2011 Jane Tournois*, Laurent Rineau*, Pierre Alliez°, Mariette Yvinec° *GeometryFactory (France), °INRIA - Sophia Antipolis (France)
2012 Abel Gargallo-Peiro, Xevi Roca, Jaime Peraire and Josep Serrate Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (Spain) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) Picture of plane with equations
2013 Pointwise (now Cadence) Viscous mesh entry
2014 Scott Canann, Tim Tautges and James Clement CD-adapco (now Siemens PLM Star-ccm+) Tower Bridge
2015 Carolyn Woeber, Travis Carrigan and Claudio Pita Pointwise (now Cadence) Guitar and human abdomen organs
2016 Shaunak Pai, Scott Canann, David McLaurin, James Clement and Michael Hancock CD-adapco (now Siemens PLM Star-ccm+) White House
2017 Vivek Ahuja, Shaunak Pai, Scott Canann, James Clement, Ken Blake, Sumit Paranjape and Stefano Paoletti Siemens PLM Star-ccm+ Sagrada Familia
2018 Vivek Ahuja, Shaunak Pai, Scott Canann, David McLaurin, Jason Kraftcheck, Ian Young, James Clement and Ankush Singhi Siemens PLM Star-ccm+ Hot air balloon
2019 Abinesh Thota, Gargi Patil, Debashis Basu, Harry Fogg and Jonathan Makem Siemens PLM Simcenter-3D Niagara Falls and boat
2021 Scott Canann, Jeremy Dahan, David McLaurin, Stefano Pippa, Alexander Rand and Ian Young Siemens PLM Star-ccm+ T-Rex
2022 Mike Park, Ray Gomez and Bil Kleb NASA Space Needle Returns (Seattle Space Needle)
2023 Ken Blake, Scott Canann, Michael Hancock, Kevin Jones, Tuo Liu, Eelco Naarding, Sumit Paranjape, Francois Protais, Alexander Rand and Ian Young Siemens Windmill Simulation in a Tulip Field
2024 Scott Canann, Jeremy Dahan, Kevin Jones, Tuo Liu, Francois Protais, Alexander Rand, Ian Young Siemens Restaurant on the Harbour Scene
2025 Alexander Rand, Ken Blake, Kevin Jones, Ian Young, Ryan Lin, Scott Canann, Sumit Paranjabe, Tuo Liu Siemens Texas oilfield in Bluebonnets
2026 Laïla Bentayeb, Scott Canann, Jovana Chemin, Kevin Jones, Ryan Lin, Tuo Liu, Sumit Paranjape, Alex Rand, Pramod Vanam, and Ian Young Siemens Flight Over Brandenburg Gate