Marie-Curie Individual Fellow: Andreas Kasis is a postdoctoral researcher with the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence and the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Cyprus. In 2020, he was awarder the prestigious MSCA Individual Fellowship for research on the control and optimization of smart thermostatic loads. He received the B.A. (first class) and M.Eng. (Distinction) degrees in Information and Computer Engineering from Robinson College, University of Cambridge, in 2013. He then pursued a PhD, funded by the EPSRC and CHESS scholarships, on the control and optimization of power networks. He successfully completed his PhD studies in 2017. He then worked as a Research Associate with the Control Group, University of Cambridge until September 2019. He joined the KIOS CoE on November 2019.
His research interests focus on the distributed control of complex, heterogeneous, network systems. Topics of current interest include but are not limited to: (i) Distributed control and optimization of large scale systems. (ii) Control of generation and demand with linear, nonlinear, discontinuous and hybrid dynamics in power networks.
Host Supervisor: Stelios Timotheou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a faculty member at the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence, of the University of Cyprus. He holds a Dipl.-Ing. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Summa Cum Laude, 2005) from the National Technical University of Athens, an MSc in Communications and Signal Processing (Distinction, 2006) and a PhD in Intelligent Systems and Networks (2010), both from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of Imperial College London. In previous appointments, he was a Research Associate at KIOS, a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Cyprus, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on monitoring, control and optimization of critical infrastructure systems, with emphasis on intelligent transportation systems and communication systems. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a member of the ACM and a member of the Technical Chamber of Cyprus. He is the recipient of the 2017 ‘Cyprus Young Researcher in Physical Sciences & Engineering’ Award, by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation.
Host Co-Supervisor: Marios Polycarpou is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus. He received the B.A degree in Computer Science and the B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, both from Rice University, USA in 1987, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, in 1989 and 1992 respectively. His teaching and research interests are in intelligent systems and networks, adaptive and learning control systems, computational intelligence, fault diagnosis and critical infrastructure systems. Dr. Polycarpou has published more than 350 articles in refereed journals, edited books and refereed conference proceedings, and co-authored 7 books. He is also the holder of 6 patents.
Prof. Polycarpou was the recipient of the 2016 IEEE Neural Networks Pioneer Award and the 2014 Best Paper Award for the journal Building and Environment (Elsevier). He served as the President of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (2012-2013), as the President of the European Control Association (2017-2019), and as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (2004-2010). Prof. Polycarpou is an Honorary Professor of Imperial College London and a Fellow of IEEE and IFAC. He has participated in more than 70 research projects/grants, funded by several agencies and industry in Europe and the United States, including the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant and the EU Teaming project. Prof. Polycarpou is an elected Founding Member of the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts.
Secondment Supervisor: Claudio De Persis is a Full Professor with the Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen and a member of the J.C. Willems Center for Systems and Control. De Persis’s expertise is in control theory and his research focuses on the control of networked and cyber-physical systems, with emphasis on the resilience to unforeseen disruptions and with applications to energy systems. In the last decade he has published 117 papers, 30 of which (26%) belong to the top 5% most cited globally in his field, according to Elsevier’s citation analysis tool SciVal. He holds two patents. De Persis has so far successfully supervised 10 PhD students (2 in co-supervision) and 6 more are currently on track to defend in the period 2019-2022. These students are or have been supported via national and international funding. Prof. De Persis has been an Associate Editor for the top-tier journals in his field.