Curriculum Vitae - Jan C. Willems
Curriculum Vitae - Jan C. Willems
He was an assistant professor in the Department of electrical engineering at MIT from 1968 to 1973, with a one year leave of absence at DAMPT, the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics, of Cambridge University. In his dissertation he worked on input/output stability, under the direction of Roger W. Brockett, presently at Harvard University. This research led to the monograph The Analysis of Feedback Systems, MIT Press, 1971. He subsequently worked on optimal control, in particular on linear-quadratic problems with indefinite cost and associated questions related to the Riccati equation. Out of this work, the notion of a dissipative system and the linear matrix inequality (LMI) emerged as the main concepts and analysis tools. In the 80's and 90's these ideas came to play a central role in the synthesis of robust controllers.
On February 1, 1973, he was appointed Professor of Systems and Control in the Mathematics Department of the University of Groningen. His interests turned to geometric control and questions of disturbance decoupling. He introduced the notion of almost invariant subspaces which allows the solution of a number of control problems involving high gain feedback.
In the mid 80's, he became conscious of the limitations of the input/output thinking as the framework for the analysis and synthesis of open and interconnected systems. This uneasiness led him to develop what is called the behavioral approach, in which a dynamical system is simply viewed as a family of trajectories. This work also emphasizes the importance, for example in object oriented modeling, of latent variables in addition to the manifest variables which the model aims at. In this setting, control is viewed as interconnection, with feedback as an important special case. The original ideas were introduced in an early paper in the, now defunct, Italian journal Ricerche di Automatica. A more extensive development appeared in a 3-part paper in Automatica in 1986-87, and in a paper in Dynamics Reported in 1989. Other convenient sources for these ideas are two papers in the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (1991 and 1997), a textbook (co-authored with Jan Willem Polderman) published by Springer Verlag, and expository an article published in the IEEE Control Systems Magazine in 2007. In 1988, he was awarded the Automatica Prize Paper Award for a series of 3 articles in which the behavioral framework was put forward.
In 2003, Professor Willems became emeritus professor from the University of Groningen. He gave his farewell lecture on January 13, 2004. Presently he is guest professor at the department of electrical engineering, with the research group on Signals, Identification, System Theory and Automation (SISTA), at the K.U. Leuven, Belgium. During the academic year 2003-2004, he held the Chaire Francqui at the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the Université catholique de Louvain .
Professor Willems is a life fellow of the IEEE. He has held the unavoidable administrative positions in his department, including a six year term as director of research. He served terms as chairperson of the European Union Control Association and of the Dutch Mathematical Society (Wiskundig Genootschap). He has been on the editorial board of a number of journals, in particular, as managing editor of the SIAM Journal of Control and Optimization and as founding and managing editor of Systems & Control Letters.
In 1998, he received the IEEE Control Systems award. In 2010, he became doctor honoris causa from the Université de Liège.
Guest professor, research group on Signals, Identification, System Theory and Automation (SISTA)
Department of Electrical Engineering, K.U. Leuven
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium
Telephone: +3216321143; secretary: -1709; Fax: -1970.Former positions
email: Jan.Willems@esat.kuleuven.be
URL: http://www.esat.kuleuven.be/~jwillems
1973-2003: Professor of Systems and Control (presently emeritus)Education
Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, University of Groningen, The Netherlands1968-1973: Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
1965-1968: Graduate School of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USAProfessional field and research interests
Doctor of Philosophy, June 1968
Ph.D. dissertation: Nonlinear Harmonic Analysis, supervisor: R.W. Brockett1963-1965: Graduate School of Electrical Engineering, University of Rhode Island
Master of Science, June 1965
M.Sc. thesis: The Statistical Properties of the Slope of a Wind Driven Surface in a Model Tank1958-1963: Faculty of Engineering, University of Ghent, Belgium
Degree of Electromechanical Engineer, July 1963
Engineering thesis: The Magnetic Field at the End Windings of a Turbogenerator
Principal research areas:Professional activities
Systems theory, control, modeling; Representation questions, multivariable control, system identification;
Applications in control engineering; applications in physics and econometrics.Present research program:
The development of the behavioral approach to systems and control
Modeling of open dynamical systems
Algorithms for modeling based on tearing, zooming, and linking
Model reduction and system identification
Systems theory for systems described by PDE's
Dissipative systems
Control problems in a behavioral setting.
Chairperson, selection committee for the IEEE CSS Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize (2005-2010)Awards and honors
Director, Research Institute of Mathematics and Computing Science, University of Groningen (1993-1998)
Chairperson, Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, University of Groningen (1986-1989)
President of the European Union Control Association (EUCA) (1993-1995)
President of the Dutch Mathematical Society (Wiskundig Genootschap) (1994-1996)
Chairperson of the Board of the Dutch Institute of Systems and Control (DISC) (1995- 2001)
Chairperson of Dutch Institute of Systems and Control (DISC) (National Graduate Program) (1986-1995)
Chairperson of the Johann Bernoulli Foundation for Mathematics (1988-1997)
Chairperson of the Selection Committee for the 1990 Brouwer Lecturer
Member of IEEE, SIAM, Dutch Mathematical Society (Wiskundig Genootschap), American Mathematical Society
2010 doctor honoris causa, Université de Liège.
2003-2004 Chaire Francqui, Faculté des Sciences Appliquées, Université catholique de Louvain
1998 IEEE Control Systems award "For seminal contributions to control theory and leadership in systems research"
1998 IEEE Control Systems Magazine outstanding paper award
Invited speaker at the 1998 International Congress of Mathematicians, Berlin
Festschrift: Three Decades of Mathematical System Theory,A Collection of Surveys at the Occasion of the 50th Birthday of Jan C. Willems
(Editors H. Nijmeijer and J.M. Schumacher), Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences, Volume 135, Springer Verlag, 1989
1987 Automatica prize paper award
Since 1980 Fellow of the IEEE (presently Life fellow)
1963-1965: Fulbright fellowship for study in the US
Antonio Ruberti lecture, Rome, 2007
Peter Sagirow lecture, Stuttgart, 2006
Miegunyah public lecture, Melbourne, 1997
Zaborsky lecture, St Louis, 1993
November 2006: Visiting professor, Kyoto UniversityEditorial activities
March-May 2005: Visiting professor, Kyoto University
May-June 2003: University of Osaka and Kyoto University
September - December 1998: Harvard University
January - March 1997: Miegunyah visiting professor, University of Melbourne
October - November 1995: Distinguished lecturer, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
March 1994: California Institute of Technology
September - November 1992: Control Theory Year, IMA, University of Minnesota
June 1991: IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria
February 1989: Distinguished visiting professor, Arizona State University
July 1988: IMA, University of Minnesota
September 1986: IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria
July-August 1983: Osaka University, Japan
March 1983: University of Southern California
Summer 1981: Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, MIT
December 1978: Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheeva, Israel
November 1975 - February 1976: Visiting Professor, ETH, Zürich
Summer 1975: University of Rome
Summer 1974: Harvard University
January 1973: University of Florida
May 1972: IRIA, Rocquencourt, France
September 1970 - August 1971: Postdoc, University of Cambridge, UK
Founding and Managing Editor of Systems & Control Letters (1981-1994)Editor-in-Chief of SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization (1989-1993)
Member, Editorial Board
Systems & Control Letters (1981- )
Acta Applicandae Mathematicae (1982-2008)
Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing (1989-2011)
SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization (1981-2005)
Mathematics of Control, Systems, and Signal Processing (1988-1998)
Applied Mathematics and Computation (1988-1995)
Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Science (1989-1995)
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (1971-1973)
Dynamics Reported (1986 - 1991)
Dynamics and Stability of Systems (1985-1994)
Applied Mathematics Letters (1988-1992)
Control - Theory and Advanced Technology (1985-1990)
RAIRO Automatique (1981-1987)
Annals of Systems Research (1978-1979)
Journal of Applied Science and Engineering (1975-1978)
Soviet Encyclopaedia of Mathematics - English Translation
Systems & Control: Foundations and Applications, Birkhäuser (1989-1999) (Bookseries)
Progress in Systems and Control Theory, Birkhäuser (1988-1994) (Bookseries)
Advances in Mathematics for Applied Sciences, World Publishing Co. (1989- 2002) (Bookseries)
Popov special issue, European Journal of Control, 2001 (Guest editor)
Special issue on Parametrization Problems in Control, Journal of Linear Algebra and Its Applications Vol. 122/123/124, 1989 (Guest editor)
Special issue on Linear Systems, IMA Journal of Mathematical Control and Information, Vol. 3, Nos 2/3, 1986 (Guest editor)
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol. 26, No. 4, 198, Bellman special issue (Guest associate editor)
IEEE Proceedings, Vol. 64, No. 1, 1967, Special issue on Recent Trends in System Theory (Guest associate editor)
Organizer (with Y. Ohta, S. Hara, and H. Fujioka) of the symposium on Systems, Control, and Signal Processing, Kyoto, Japan, March 29-31, 2010Go to top
on the occasion of the 60-th birthday of Yutaka Yamamoto
Member (with B. De Moor, P. Van Dooren, and V. Blondel) of the scientific organizing committee of the 2004 MTNS
Organizer (with J. Baillieul) of the conference Perspectives in Control, Cambridge, MA, October 23-24, 1998 on the occasion of the 60-th birthday of R.W. Brockett
Organiser (with H.L. Trentelman) of the Workshop on Control of Uncertain Systems on the occasion of the Bernoulli year, August 29 - September 1, 1995
Chairperson, Organization Committee of the 1993 European Control Conference (ECC'93) Groningen, June 28-July 1, 1993 (600 participants)
Chairperson, Organization Committee 1984 Dutch Mathematical Congress
Co-Director (with M. Hazewinkel) of the Advanced Study Institute on Stochastic Systems: The Mathematics of Filtering and Identification, Les Arcs, June 23 - July 4, 1980