SS09

Christopher I. Byrnes (Washington University in St. Louis, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) is a leading researcher of world-wide reputation whose interests include (but are not restricted to) nonlinear dynamics and geometry, feedback systems and signal analysis, and other problems arising in engineering and science. He is the author of several books and over 250 papers; moreover he has holds four US patents in engineering sciences and has obtained several research grants.

Christopher Byrnes received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Massachusetts, supervised by Marshall H. Stone. He has been instructor at the University of Utah, and later joined the faculty of Harvard University as an Associate Professor. At Washington University, he served as Chairman of the Department of Systems Science and Mathematics from 1989 to 1991, and was Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences from 1991 to 2006. He is now a Skinner Professor of Systems Science and Mathematics.

He has held numerous visiting positions in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the former Soviet Union. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) in 1998 and the Reid Prize from SIAM in 2005, and he received the George Axelby Award for the best paper in the IEEE Transactions in 1991.

During the summer semester 2009, Professor Byrnes will give a regular course (with exercises) on Nonlinear Control Theory which addresses to students of mathematics and physics, as well as a more specialized seminar (jointly with U. Helmke and F. Wirth) on Dynamical Systems and Control Theory (see https://www.mathematik-informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de). All classes will be taught in English.