Panelists

Munther A. Dahleh received his Ph.D. degree from Rice University, Houston, TX, in 1987 in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Since then, he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), MIT, Cambridge, MA, where he is now the William A. Coolidge Professor of EECS. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Sloan School of Management. He is currently the Director of the newly formed MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Previously, he held the positions of Associate Department Head of EECS, Acting Director of the Engineering Systems Division, and Acting Director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems.

Dahleh is well-known for his seminal contributions to the field of networked systems and robust control. His research has impacted several application domains including transportation and autonomous systems, power grid, financial systems, and social networks. Dahleh’s work has appeared in economics and operations research venues, as well as 8 different IEEE Transactions, from Automatic Control to Biomedical Engineering to Network Science.

He is four-time recipient of the George Axelby outstanding paper award for best paper in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. He is also the recipient of the Donald P. Eckman award from the American Control Council in 1993 for the best control engineer under 35. He has given many keynote lectures at major conferences.

Gabriela Hug was born in Baden, Switzerland. She received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree from ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, in 2004 and 2008, respectively. After the Ph.D. degree, she worked with the Special Studies Group of Hydro One, Toronto, ON, Canada. From 2009 to 2015, she was an Assistant Professor with Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. She is currently a Professor with the Power Systems Laboratory, ETH Zürich and co-director of the NCCR Automation. Her research interests include control and optimization of electric power systems. Dr. Hug received many professional and academic awards, including NSF CAREER Award, the IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award and the ETH Zürich Art of Leadership Award. 

Karl H. Johansson is Swedish Research Council Distinguished Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and Director of Digital Futures. He received MSc degree in Electrical Engineering and PhD in Automatic Control from Lund University. He has held visiting positions at UC Berkeley, Caltech, NTU among other institutions. His research interests are in networked control systems and cyber-physical systems with applications in transportation, energy, and automation networks. He is Vice President IEEE Control Systems Society, member of IFAC Council, and Immediate Past President of the European Control Association, and he has served on the IEEE Control Systems Society Board of Governors and the Swedish Scientific Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering Sciences. He has received several best paper awards and other distinctions from IEEE, IFAC, and ACM. He has been awarded Distinguished Professor by Swedish Research Council, Wallenberg Scholar with the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Future Research Leader from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, the triennial IFAC Young Author Prize, IEEE Control Systems Society Distinguished Lecturer, and IEEE Control Systems Society Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize. He is Fellow of the IEEE and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. 

Marios Polycarpou is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus. He is also a Founding Member of the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, an Honorary Professor of Imperial College London, and a Member of Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe).  He received the B.A degree in Computer Science and the B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, both from Rice University, USA in 1987, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, in 1989 and 1992 respectively. His teaching and research interests are in intelligent systems and networks, adaptive and learning control systems, fault diagnosis, machine learning, and critical infrastructure systems.

Prof. Polycarpou is the recipient of the 2023 IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Technical Field Award and the 2016 IEEE Neural Networks Pioneer Award. He is a Fellow of IEEE and IFAC. He served as the President of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (2012-2013), as the President of the European Control Association (2017-2019), and as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (2004-2010). Prof. Polycarpou currently serves on the Editorial Boards of the Proceedings of the IEEE and the Annual Reviews in Control. His research work has been funded by several agencies and industry in Europe and the United States, including the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, the ERC Synergy Grant and the EU-Widening Teaming program.

Ambra Sannino joined Vattenfall as Vice President, Research and Development (R&D) in August 2023. Previously, she was with the global manufacturer ABB for 15 yrs (2004-2019) holding management positions in R&D, Technology, Product Management, in the area of Power Grids. Between 2019 and 2023, she was with DNV, a provider of services in energy sector, holding leadership roles in power grids in Northern Europe. Ambra has a Ph.D. in Power Engineering from the University of Palermo in Italy, and is a Doctor of Science (Docent) from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Prior to joining the industry, she was for a few years an Associate Professor in Power Systems at Chalmers University. She holds ca 10 patents and has authored and co-authored more than 50 papers on power electronics in power systems and distributed generation. Ambra is a Cigré member, a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and Chair of the IEEE Power & Energy / Power Electronics Joint Chapter in Sweden. She serves as a board member of the organizations Power Circle AB and Kraftkvinnorna, and as an expert reviewer for the Swedish Energy Agency, in the program Vehicle Strategic Research and Innovation.