Celebrating EEE academic staff promotions: Professor David Angeli

Mathematical techniques for optimising any system — from molecular biology to smart power grids

Six of EEE's academic staff have been promoted in 2021 - today we meet Professor David Angeli.

David Angeli, promoted to Professor of Nonlinear Network Dynamics 

"I joined Imperial College in 2008 after several years as an Associate Professor at the University of Florence, and I soon became involved as Director of our specialist MSc course in Control Systems and recently managed its transition to MSc in Control and Optimisation.

Control theory and optimisation has developed into a well-established body of knowledge that engineers require to design today's automated systems across the chemical, aeronautical, power, transport and defence industries.

My research is in mathematical techniques for the analysis and control of nonlinear systems, with applications that span from biological systems to electrical power grids, with a focus on the dynamics of nonlinear networks and possible strategies to control them to our advantage.

The underlying feature of such application domains is the possibility of modelling the crucial interactions of a system mathematically so that we can gain a qualitative understanding of their emerging behaviour from the available quantitative information and analysis of the underlying topology of these interactions.

Some of my most important research outputs deal with how to operate systems so as to optimise their performance  — for instance reducing energy costs or improving their sustainability — thanks to a technique called Economic Model Predictive Control.  

I have a small group of committed PhD students who work on these areas, and I teach two fourth year / MSc courses, on Stability and Control of Nonlinear Systems and Discrete Event Systems."

Our congratulations to David, and to all our newly-promoted staff, from everyone in the EEE Community!