In October 2016, the Institute for Mechanics of Materials and Structures (IMWS), the Department of Civil Engineering, and the Center for Geometry and Computational Design at Vienna University of Technology have established a new Distinguished Lecture Series in the Engineering Sciences, named Ernst Melan-Lectures.

Ernst Melan (* 1890, in Brünn/Brno, † 1963, in Vienna) was a pioneer of engineering mechanics in the 1st half of the 20th century. As professor of elasticity theory, structural mechanics, and building construction at TU Wien from 1925 to 1962, he has sustainably shaped the culture of teaching and research at this university, where he has also held the positions of department head („Dekan“) and president („Rektor“). Among his numerous contributions to the engineering sciences, his shake-down theorem, as of 1936, and his general treatise of elastoplasticity, as of 1938, both anticipating many ideas which were hardly discussed before the 1950s, are true landmarks in the history of theoretical and applied mechanics.