# List of people in systems and control

This is an alphabetical list of people who have made significant contributions in the fields of system analysis and control theory.

## Eminent researchers

The eminent researchers (born after 1920) include the winners of at least one award of the IEEE Control Systems Award, the Giorgio Quazza Medal, the Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, the Rufus Oldenburger Medal, or higher awards such as the IEEE Medal of Honor and the National Medal of Science. The earlier pioneers such as Nicolas Minorsky (1885–1970), Harry Nyquist (1889–1976), Harold Locke Hazen (1901–1980), Charles Stark Draper (1901–1987), Hendrik Wade Bode (1905–1982), Gordon S. Brown (1907–1996), John F. Coales (1907–1999), Rufus Oldenburger (1908–1969), John R. Ragazzini (1912–1988), Nathaniel B. Nichols (1914–1997), John Zaborszky (1914–2008) and Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) are not included.
| Name | Institution | Nationality | Contributions | Age | Awards |
| Brian D. O. Anderson | Australian National University | Australian | | 1941 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1992), IEEE Control Systems Award (1997), Giorgio Quazza Medal (1999) |
| Karl Johan Åström | Lund University | Swedish | Author of five books, including Introduction to Stochastic Control Theory (1970 and Dover, 2006) and (with Wittenmark) of Adaptive Control (Addison-Wesley, 1995). | 1934 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1985), Giorgio Quazza Medal (1988), IEEE Control Systems Award (1990) |
| Michael Athans (Μιχαήλ Αθανασιάδης) | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Greek-American | | 1937 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1993), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1995) |
| John Baillieul | Boston University | American | Works on robotics, mechanical system control and non-holonomic constraints. | 1945 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2011) |
| B. Ross Barmish | University of Wisconsin–Madison | Canadian-American | Author of New Tools for Robustness of Linear Systems (Macmillan, 1994). For fundamental contributions to the analysis of systems with parametric uncertainty and to probabilistic robustness, and for contributions to the design of stock-trading algorithms that are robust to market variability. IEEE fellow and IFAC fellow. | 1949 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2013) |
| Tamer Başar | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | Turkish-American | Works on dynamic games, control and communication theory, etc. | 1946 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2004), Giorgio Quazza Medal (2005), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2006), IEEE Control Systems Award (2014) |
| Richard E. Bellman | University of Southern California | American | | 1920–1984 | John von Neumann Theory Prize (1976), IEEE Medal of Honor (1979), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1984) |
| Dimitri P. Bertsekas (Δημήτρης Παντελής Μπερτσεκάς) | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Greek-American | | 1942 | Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2014), John von Neumann Theory Prize (2018), IEEE Control Systems Award (2022) |
| Stephen P. Boyd | Stanford University | American | Works on engineering applications of convex optimization. Winner of John R. Ragazzini Award in control systems. | 1958 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2013) |
| Roger W. Brockett | Harvard University | American | Works on dynamics and control of smart structures. | 1938 | Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1989), IEEE Control Systems Award (1991), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2005), Giorgio Quazza Medal (2017) |
| Arthur E. Bryson, Jr. | Stanford University | American | | 1925 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1980), IEEE Control Systems Award (1984), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1990) |
| Peter E. Caines | McGill University | Canadian | Works in the areas of stochastic, adaptive, large scale and hybrid systems, Mean Field Games (or Nash Certainty Equivalence). Fellow of the IEEE, SIAM, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and Royal Society of Canada. Recipient of the Bode Lecture Prize in 2009. | 1945 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2009) |
| Edward J. Davison | University of Toronto | Canadian | | 1928 | Giorgio Quazza Medal (1993), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1997) |
| John C. Doyle | California Institute of Technology | American | Co-author of (with Zhou and Glover) Robust and Optimal Control (Prentice Hall, 1996), Essentials of Robust Control (1997), and Feedback Control Theory (Macmillan, 1992). | 1954 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2004) |
| Walter R. Evans | General Electric; Rockwell International; Ford Aeronautic Company | American | | 1920–1999 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1987), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1988) |
| Bruce Francis | University of Toronto | Canadian | | 1947–2018 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2014), IEEE Control Systems Award (2015) |
| Gene F. Franklin | Stanford University | American | | 1927–2012 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1994), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2005) |
| Elmer G. Gilbert | University of Michigan | American | | 1930–2019 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1994), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1996) |
| Keith Glover | University of Cambridge | British | | 1946 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2001) |
| Graham Goodwin | University of Newcastle, Australia | Australian | | 1945 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1999), Giorgio Quazza Medal (2008), IEEE Control Systems Award (2010), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2013) |
| J. Karl Hedrick | University of California, Berkeley | American | Total Domination of Etcheverry Hall. Seminal contributions in nonlinear control and estimation. | 1944–2017 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2006) |
| Yu-Chi "Larry" Ho (何毓琦) | Harvard University | Chinese-American | Co-author of Applied Optimal Control (1969, 1975), the most cited book on the subject. Since 1983 he has been working on discrete event system theory. | 1934 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1989), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1999), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1999) |
| Alberto Isidori | Sapienza University of Rome; Washington University in St. Louis | Italian | | 1942 | Giorgio Quazza Medal (1996), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2001), IEEE Control Systems Award (2012) |
| Eliahu I. Jury (إلياهو جوري) | University of California, Berkeley; University of Miami | Iraqi-American | | 1923 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1986), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1993) |
| Thomas Kailath | Stanford University | Indian-American | Author of Linear Systems (Prentice Hall, 1980) and co-author of Linear Estimation (Prentice Hall, 2000). | 1935 | IEEE Medal of Honor (2007), National Medal of Science (2012) |
| Rudolf E. Kalman (Kálmán Rudolf Emil) | University of Florida; ETH Zurich | Hungarian-American | | 1930–2016 | IEEE Medal of Honor (1974), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1976), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1997), Charles Stark Draper Prize (2008), National Medal of Science (2009) |
| Hidenori Kimura (木村英紀) | Riken | Japanese | | 1941 | Giorgio Quazza Medal (2011) IEEE Control Systems Award (2021) |
| Petar V. Kokotovic (Петар В. Кокотовић) | University of California, Santa Barbara | Serbian-American | Works on nonlinear control, both adaptive and robust. He initiated the development of back-stepping (a popular, recursive, design technique). Industry consultant on control of car and jet engines. | 1934 | Giorgio Quazza Medal (1990), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1991), IEEE Control Systems Award (1995), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2002) |
| Arthur J. Krener | Naval Postgraduate School | American | | 1942 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2006), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2012), IEEE Control Systems Award (2016) |
| Miroslav Krstic | University of California, San Diego | Serbian-American | PDE backstepping control, nonlinear delay systems, extremum seeking, adaptive control, stochastic nonlinear stabilization, and their industrial applications | 1964 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2017), W. T. and Idalia Reid Prize (2019), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2021), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2023) |
| Harold J. Kushner | Brown University | American | | 1933 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1992), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2004) |
| Ioan Doré Landau | CNRS | French | | 1938 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2000) |
| George Leitmann | University of California, Berkeley | American | | 1925 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1995), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2009) |
| Lennart Ljung | Linköping University | Swedish | Author of System identification - Theory for the user (Prentice Hall, 1999) and 12 other books. Fellow IEEE. | 1946 | Giorgio Quazza Medal (2002), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2003), IEEE Control Systems Award (2007) |
| David Luenberger | Stanford University | American | | 1937 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1990), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1998) |
| David Q. Mayne | Imperial College London | British | Works on differential dynamic programming, adaptive control and model predictive control. | 1930 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2009), Giorgio Quazza Medal (2014) |
| Sanjoy K. Mitter | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Indian-American | | 1933 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2000), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2007) |
| Manfred Morari | ETH Zurich; University of Pennsylvania; United Technologies | Austrian-American | Works on model predictive control, optimization for control system, Youla-Parametrization, and internal model control (IMC). Co-author of Predictive Control of Linear and Hybrid Systems and the author of Robust Process Control. | 1951 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2005), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2010), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2011), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2015) |
| A. Stephen Morse | Yale University | American | | 1939 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1999), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2013) |
| Richard M. Murray | California Institute of Technology | American | | 1963 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2016), IEEE Control Systems Award (2017) |
| Kumpati S. Narendra | Yale University | Indian-American | | 1933 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (1995), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2003) |
| Howard H. Rosenbrock | University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology | British | | 1920–2010 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1982), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1994) |
| Shankar Sastry | University of California, Berkeley | Indian | | | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2021) |
| Eduardo D. Sontag | Northeastern University | Argentine-American | | 1951 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2002), IEEE Control Systems Award (2011) |
| Masayoshi Tomizuka (富塚诚义) | University of California, Berkeley | Japanese | | 1946 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2002), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2018) |
| John G. Truxal | State University of New York at Stony Brook | American | | 1924–2007 | Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1991), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1991) |
| John N. Tsitsiklis (Ιωάννης Νικόλαος Τσιτσικλής) | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Greek-American | | 1958 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2018), John von Neumann Theory Prize (2018) |
| Pravin Varaiya | University of California, Berkeley | Indian-American | | 1940-2022 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2002), Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize (2005), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (2008) |
| Mathukumalli Vidyasagar | University of Texas at Dallas | Indian | Professor of Systems Biology Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. Author of Nonlinear systems analysis (Prentice Hall, 1993 and SIAM, 2002). | 1947 | IEEE Control Systems Award (2008), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2012) |
| Jan C. Willems | University of Groningen | Belgian | Author of The analysis of feedback systems (1971). Worked on LQ control, dissipative systems and linear matrix inequalities. Co-author of Introduction to mathematical system theory – a behavioral approach (Wiley, 1998), where the behavioral approach is a representation free way to discuss system dynamics. | 1939–2013 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1998) |
| W. Murray Wonham | University of Toronto | Canadian | | 1934–2023 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1987), Giorgio Quazza Medal (2020) |
| Dante C. Youla | Polytechnic Institute of New York University | American | | 1925 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1988) |
| Lotfi A. Zadeh (Persian: لطفی علی‌عسگرزاده Azerbaijani: Lütfi Rəhim oğlu Ələsgərzadə) | University of California, Berkeley | Iranian-Azerbaijani-American | | 1921–2017 | Eringen Medal (1976), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1993), IEEE Medal of Honor (1995), Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1998), Golden Goose Award (2017) |
| Moshe Zakai (משה זכאי) | Technion | Israeli | | 1926–2015 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1993) |
| George D. Zames | McGill University | Polish-Canadian | | 1934–1997 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1985), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1996) |

## Eminent researchers of USSR (including Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, etc. from 1922 to 1991)

| Name | Institution | Place of birth | Contributions | Age | Awards |
| Nikolay Bogolyubov (Никола́й Никола́евич Боголю́бов) | National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine | Nizhny Novgorod | Together with Nikolay Krylov developed the describing function method as an approximate procedure for analyzing nonlinear control problems. | 1909–1992 | Stalin Prize (1947, 1953), Lenin Prize (1958), USSR State Prize (1984), Lomonosov Gold Medal (1985) |
| Yakov Z. Tsypkin (Яков За́лманович Цы́пкин) | Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; Moscow Power Engineering Institute | Dnipropetrovsk | | 1919–1997 | Lenin Prize (1960), Giorgio Quazza Medal (1984), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1989) |
| N. N. Krasovski (Никола́й Никола́евич Красо́вский) | Ural State University | Yekaterinburg | | 1923 | Lenin Prize (1976), USSR State Prize (1984), IEEE Control Systems Award (2003) |
| Vladimir Yakubovich (Влади́мир Андре́евич Якубо́вич) | Saint Petersburg State University | Novosibirsk | Pioneered the usage of linear matrix inequalities in control theory. Considered as the father of the field. | 1926–2012 | IEEE Control Systems Award (1996) |
| Faina Mihajlovna Kirillova (Фаина Михайловна Кириллова) | National Academy of Sciences of Belarus | Zuyevka | Developed a constructive theory of extremal problems, proved the quasi-maximum principle for discrete systems, and developed algorithms for adaptive optimization. | 1931 | USSR Council of Ministers Prize (1986) |
| Vadim Utkin (Вадим Иванович Уткин) | Ohio State University | Moscow | | 1937 | Lenin Prize (1972), Rufus Oldenburger Medal (2003) |

## Other active researchers

| Name | Institution | Nationality | Contributions | Awards |
| Damiano Brigo | Imperial College | | Works on nonlinear filtering (jointly introduced with Bernard Hanzon and François Le Gland the projection filters). | |
| William L. Brogan | University of Nevada, Las Vegas | | Author of book Modern Control Theory. ISBN 0-13-589763-7 | |
| Munther A. Dahleh | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | Co-author of Control of Uncertain Systems: A Linear Programing Approach (Prentice Hall, 1995). | |
| Moonyong Lee | Yeungnam University | | Adviser of Process Systems Design and Control Laboratory. Working on IMC based Optimal Design of Industrial Three Term Controllers, Robust Analytical Design of Multi-loop PID Controllers, Optimization Based Controller Design for Constrained Optimal Control, Advanced Control for Thermally Coupled Distillation Process, Real-time Monitoring and Control Software Package, Optimal Design of Thermally Coupled Distillation Process Including Divided Wall Column. | |
| Karl Henrik Johansson | KTH Royal Institute of Technology | Sweden | Works in many areas, including application of hybrid systems and networked control system, security of cyber-physical systems, and model reduction. | IEEE Fellow 2013, Fellow of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science 2017 |
| Mehran Mesbahi | University of Washington | | Works on networks, distributed robotics, aerospace GN&C, and optimization. Co-author of the book "Graph Theoretic Methods in Multiagent Networks" (Princeton, 2010). | |
| Jan H. van Schuppen | Free University of Amsterdam and CWI | | is author of more than one hundred publications in control theory, system identification, realization theory and filtering. | |
| Arjan van der Schaft | University of Groningen | | He is notable for his contributions to network modeling and control of complex systems as Port-Hamiltonian systems, Passivity-based Control, Nonlinear H_infty control and Hybrid systems. He is a Fellow of the (IEEE). | |
| S. S. Sritharan | Naval Postgraduate School | | ( Developed Deterministic and Stochastic Control Theory and nonlinear filtering for Fluid Dynamics and MHD using Navier–Stokes equations and magnetohydrodynamic equations as state space models). | |
| Peter Stoica | Uppsala University | | Works on System Identification and Modeling. | |
| Jakob Stoustrup | Aalborg University | | Works on loop-transfer recovery, gain scheduled control, fault tolerant control and several other areas. | |
| Roberto Tempo | CNR-IEIIT, Politecnico di Torino | | Author of the book titled Randomized Algorithms for Analysis and Control of Uncertain Systems, with Applications (Springer-Verlag, 2013). | |
| Kevin Warwick | University of Reading | | Developed the first state-space based self-tuning controller, now involved more in application studies of feedback control, particularly where a human is part of the system. | |
| Stephen Yurkovich | University of Texas at Dallas | | Fellow of the IEEE, and holds the Louis Beecherl, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he is also Program Head of Systems Engineering. | |
| Yutaka Yamamoto | Kyoto University | Japan | Author of the book Repetitive Control (in Japanese) and a large number of research, survey and tutorial articles. Fellow of the IEEE. Former Chair of the IEEE Control System (CSS) Society. | |
| Masayuki Fujita | Tokyo Institute of Technology | Japan | works on passivity-based control in robotics, multi-agent robotics, and robust control. co-author of Passivity-Based Control and Estimation in Networked Robotics. | IEEE Fellow 2016 |

## Historical figures in systems and control

These people have made outstanding historical contributions to systems and control.
| Given Names | Last Name | Institution | Year | Contributions |
| George Biddell | Airy | | 1840 | Early investigations into the instability phenomenon in Watt governors. |
| William Ross | Ashby | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | | Made many early contributions to cybernetics and complex systems, such as the concept of variety (cybernetics). |
| Robert H. | Park | | 1929 | Published last century's 2nd-ranked power engineering paper for developing Park Transform of AC machines with time-invariant-coefficient LDEs, widely used for vector control in AC drive & other power electronics applications. |
| Richard | Bellman | | 1953 | Developed dynamic programming |
| Harold Stephen | Black | Worcester Polytechnic Institute | 1927 | Invented the negative-feedback amplifier |
| Hendrik | Bode | | 1945 | Published Network Analysis and Feedback Amplifier Design (Van Nostrand), invented the Bode plot and introduced the Bode integral formula. |
| Nikolay | Bogolyubov | | | Together with Nikolay Krylov developed the describing function method as an approximate procedure for analyzing nonlinear control problems. |
| Leonhard | Euler | | | Developed the Laplace transform, the main tool for analyzing LTI systems. His Euler–Lagrange equation is the basis for model predictive control. |
| Rudolf | Kalman | | 1960 | Pioneered the state-space approach to systems and control. Introduced the notions of controllability and observability. Developed the Kalman filter for linear estimation. |
| Walter R. | Evans | | | Developed the root locus method for feedback design. |
| Gene F. | Franklin | | | His 1958 text "Sampled-Data Control Systems" introduced digital control to a discipline which had previously operated almost exclusively in the analog domain. |
| Joseph | Fourier | | | Introduced the Fourier series, allowing analysis in the frequency domain. |
| Ernst A. | Guillemin | | | Developed techniques for analysis and synthesis of networks of RLC components. |
| Harold | Hazen | | 1934 | Author of Theory of Servomechanisms. |
| Faina | Kirillova | National Academy of Sciences of Belarus | | Developed a constructive theory of extremal problems, proved the quasi-maximum principle for discrete systems, and developed algorithms for adaptive optimization. |
| Andrey | Kolmogorov | | | Co-developer of the Wiener–Kolmogorov filter. Formulated the Kolmogorov forward and backward equations in the theory of stochastic processes. |
| Nikolay | Krylov | | | together with Nikolay Bogolyubov developed the describing function method as an approximate procedure for analyzing nonlinear control problems. |
| Irmgard | Flügge-Lotz | Stanford University | | Developed discontinuous automatic control, which laid the foundation for automatic on-off aircraft control in jets. |
| Alexander | Lyapunov | | 1892 | His paper Sur le problème général de la stabilité du mouvement (in French) marks the beginning of stability theory. |
| James Clerk | Maxwell | | 1868 | Paper "On governors" investigated the stability of governors in a systematic way and discovered the necessary conditions for stability. |
| Nicolas | Minorsky | | 1922 | Ship designer, was the first to provide an analysis of the three term (or PID) controller and to suggest its use for ship steering. |
| Nathaniel B. | Nichols | | 1947 | Developed the Nichols plot. Published Theory of Servomechanisms with H. M. James and R. S. Phillips. |
| Harry | Nyquist | | 1927 | Developed the Nyquist stability criterion for feedback systems (1932) and co-developed Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. |
| Lev | Pontryagin | | | Main author of Pontryagin's minimum principle for optimal control problems. |
| Vasile | Popov | | | Developed the Kalman–Yakubovich–Popov lemma and the Popov criterion for stability. |
| John R. | Ragazzini | | 1954 | His book Sampled-data control systems introduced digital control and the z-transform. |
| Edward John | Routh | | | Early theorist, developed Routh–Hurwitz theorem and Routh–Hurwitz stability criterion. |
| Claude E. | Shannon | | | Developed information theory and pioneered switching theory. |
| John | Tukey | | | Developed the Fast Fourier transform algorithm, which made frequency analysis easy to implement. |
| Norbert | Wiener | | | Co-developer of the Wiener-Kolmogorov filter. Coined the term Cybernetics. Studied the stochastic process known as the Wiener process. |
| W. Murray | Wonham | | 1974 | Linear Multivariable Control. Supervisory control theory. Internal Model Principle. Pole Assignment Theorem. |
| Vladimir Andreevich | Yakubovich | Saint Petersburg State University | 1996 | Pioneered the usage of linear matrix inequalities in control theory. |
| George | Zames | McGill University | | Developed robust control theory, including the small-gain theorem and H-infinity control. |