Angela Fontan is an Assistant Professor at the Division of Decision and Control Systems, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She received a B.Sc. degree in Information Engineering in 2013 and a M.Sc. degree (with honor) in Automation Engineering in 2016, from the University of Padova, Italy. She received a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering with specialization in Automatic Control in September 2021, from the Division of Automatic Control, Department of Electrical Engineering, Linköping University, Sweden, where she was advised by Prof. Claudio Altafini. From 2021 to 2024, she was a Postdoctoral researcher at the Division of Decision and Control Systems, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), KTH Royal Institute of Technology, working with Prof. Karl Henrik Johansson. Her research interests are in the area of networked systems and nonlinear dynamics over networks and cyber-physical-human systems, with applications to social networks and collective decision-making processes and Live-in Laboratories.

Contact: angfon@kth.se (angfon {at} kth {dot} se)

Mahsa Farjadnia is a doctoral student at the Energy Technology Department, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden under the supervision of Prof. Karl H. Johansson, Dr. Marco Molinari, and Dr. Angela Fontan. She received a B.Sc and M.Sc. degree in Electrical engineering and Control Systems from the University of Tabriz, Iran, in 2014 and 2017, respectively. Afterward, she was a research assistant at INMA, ICTEAM Institute at UCLouvain, Belgium from Dec 2018 till June 2021. Subsequently, she continued her research journey as a research engineer in the Department of Energy Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology from Sep 2021 to Dec 2022. Her research interests include but are not limited to model predictive control (MPC), data-driven control, HVAC system control in smart buildings, and the modeling of occupants' behavior within smart building environments.

Contact: mahsafa@kth.se (mahsafa {at} kth {dot} se)

Varsha N. Behrunani is a PhD candidate in NCCR Automation. She is supervised by Prof. John Lygeros at Automatic Control Lab in ETH Zurich in collaboration with Dr. Kristina Orehounig at Empa. She holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Eng. from the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY from its satellite campus in Dubai, UAE. She previously worked as an electrical and project engineer in different companies including Schneider electric and Nestle Manufacturing. She received her M.Sc. in Electrical Eng. from ETH Zürich in September 2020. Her research interests are in the field of the control of power systems and her work is focused on data-based decentralized control of multi-energy systems including the coordination of multiple stakeholders within the system.

Contact: varsha.behrunani@empa.ch (varsha {dot} behrunani {at} empa {dot} ch)

Dr. Marco Molinari is a researcher at the Department of Energy Technology, at KTH. He earned his M.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering, at Padua University, in 2006. His thesis, developed within the Erasmus program at the Fraunhofer Institut für Bauphysik, Kassel, dealt with energy efficiency and management in buildings. He received his PhD in 2012 with a thesis focused on the use of exergy and parametric analysis in the built environment at the Division of Building Technology, KTH, and from 2013 until the end of 2016 he has been postdoc and researcher at the ACCESS Linnaeus Centre, KTH Department of Automatic Control.

He actively participated in three international research projects and has been a main contributor to the International Energy Agency ECBCS Annex 49 final guidebook, “Detailed Exergy Assessment Guidebook for the Built Environment”. He is the author of several scientific articles and is in the editorial board of International Review of Applied Sciences and Engineering. He has been supervisor of several theses in the field of low energy buildings design, energy management, and conservation in the built environment and in buildings’ controls.

His research interests focus on smart buildings and on the integration of Information and Communication Technologies in the built environment, including energy monitoring and deployment of advanced control approaches, as well as on passive techniques and integrated design for low energy buildings.

Contact: marcomo@kth.se (marcomo {at} kth {dot} se)

Before joining the NCCR, Ben dedicated 15 years to grow several high-tech start-ups and spin-offs in the fields related to cybersecurity of critical infrastructures, low-power embedded systems, and virtual power plants. He was born in Munich, Germany, in 1984; he received the bachelor's degree in information and communication technology in 2007 at the Bern University of Applied Sciences and EMBA in 2019 at the EPFL. His research interests include innovation management and future business models combining mobility, energy, and sustainability.

Contact: bsawicki@ethz.ch (bsawicki {at} ethz {dot} ch)

Philipp Heer is the deputy head of the Urban Energy Systems Lab (UESL) at Empa - an Institute of the ETH Domain and is responsible for the energy and digitalization related research at the Empa demonstrators NEST, move and ehub. He received a BSc from HSLU T&A (2010) and a MSc from ETH Zurich (2013) both in Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering and a MAS from ETH Zurich (2018) in Management, Technology, and Economics. His research focuses on developing operational solutions based on data-driven approaches to foster a sustainable energy system.

Contact: philipp.heer@empa.ch (philipp {dot} heer {at} empa {dot} ch)