The Department of Computer Science congratulates Distinguished Professor Allen R. Tannenbaum was selected as a 2023 International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Fellow.
The award is hailed as a prestigious distinction for conceptual foundations research in the field of systems and control and is given to those who have made “outstanding and extraordinary lifetime contributions” to their given field of interest for their role as an educator, a scientist, or a technical leader. The very first of these awards was presented in Prague back in 2005 and Tannenbaum will receive the actual award at the 2023 IFAC World Congress in Japan.
Tannenbaum’s recognition is a result of his esteemed contributions to robust control, medical image analysis, image processing, controlled active vision, mathematical systems theory, bioinformatics, and partial differential equations.
Upon hearing of the award, Tannenbaum was very honored to receive this recognition about his previous work, in particular, in robust control. His research directions have significantly changed. “I work mainly in cancer now where we use completely different methods, specifically network methods,” Tannenbaum explained. “If we can make some contribution, even in the smallest way towards this terrible disease, I’d be very happy.”
The IFAC World Congress is the largest event in the world of its kind and has been held every three years since 1960. The conference offers a first-hand look at new control techniques with an extensive coverage of application fields.
All fellows are invited to submit original papers of the highest quality, all spanning from a variety of IFAC technical areas. Tannebaum joins 24 other fellows for the upcoming triennium including but not limited to Stephen P. Boyd, Jorge Cortes, and Bart De Moor.
Tannenbaum’s award was mainly given for his work in studying the control of dynamical systems under various models of uncertainty (robust control), and the use of visual information in a feedback loop. This work led to a number of applications including tracking high speed projectiles in atmospheric turbulence, and improving the performance of advanced aircraft.
About the Researcher
Allen R. Tannenbaum is a SUNY Distinguished Professor with joint appointments in the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on cancer genomics, medical image analysis, computational computer vision and graphics, image processing, systems and control; mathematical systems theory, bioinformatics, and controlled active vision. His research interests extend to areas such as robotics, operator theory, semiconductor fabrication processes, functional analysis, algebraic and differential geometry, invariant theory, and partial differential equations. He’s been a recipient of countless awards including the Phi beta kappa, the Kennedy Research Prize, the NSF Research Initiation Award, the O. Hugo Schuck Award, and many more. He is an IEEE Fellow who earned his PhD in Mathematics from Harvard University.