From: 2025-01-23 16:50 to 17:25
Place: Seminar Room M 3170-73 at Dept. of Automatic Control, LTH
Contact: anders [dot] rantzer [at] control [dot] lth [dot] se

Date & Time: January 23, 16:50-17:25
Location: Seminar Room M 3170-73 at Dept. of Automatic Control, LTH
Speaker: Jakob Stoustrup, Aalborg University
Title: Controlling a Pandemic: An account of successfully applying control theory to the covid-19 pandemic in Denmark

Abstract:  The contagious coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Observing the virus spreading rapidly to other countries across the world led the World Health Organization (WHO) to characterize the outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. In response to the WHO warnings, each country across the world had to design a strategy to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic.

In this lecture it is described how the Danish response to the COVID-19 pandemic was established as a collaboration between authorities and experts, including control experts. In particular, it describes how a decentralized feedback scheme facilitated lifting societal constraints in a short period of time, while still keeping excess mortality at a significantly low level.

Biography: Jakob Stoustrup has received M.Sc. (EE, 1987) and Ph.D. (Applied Mathematics, 1991) degrees, both from the Technical University of Denmark. From 1991-1996, Stoustrup held several positions at Department of Mathematics, Technical University of Denmark. From 2006-2013 he acted as Head of Research for Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University. From 2014-2016, Stoustrup was Chief Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA, leading the Control of Complex Systems Initiative. From 2017-2023 Stoustrup acted as Vice Dean at the Technical Faculty of IT and Design, Aalborg University. From 1997-2013 and since 2016, Stoustrup has acted as Professor at Automation & Control, Aalborg University, Denmark.

Dr. Stoustrup has acted as Senior Editor, Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of several international journals. Served as General Chair, Program Chair, and IPC member for several international conferences. Member of the IEEE CSS Board of Governors. Council Member of The European Control Association (EUCA). Past Chairman of IEEE CSS/RAS Joint Chapter. Chair for IEEE CSS Technical Committee on Smart Grids. Chair for IFAC Technical Committee SAFEPROCESS, and Member of IFAC Technical Board. Received the Statoil Prize, the Dannin Award for Scientific Research and several conference paper awards. He received the Chivalric Order of the Dannebrog for his research contributions. Member of the European Research Council as well as the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Research Councils. He is a member of The Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, where he has acted as Board Member. Board member for several national organizations and companies.

Stoustrup's main contributions have been to robust control theory and to the theory of fault tolerant control systems. With co-workers, he has proposed a novel Plug-and-Play Control framework. Published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Apart from the theoretical work, he has been involved in applications in cooperation with 100+ industrial companies, including acting as CEO for two technological startup companies.