Alumna Naomi Leonard wins Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize

Alumna Naomi Leonard (EE Ph.D. 1994) is the winner of the 2017 Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize of the IEEE Control Systems Society. Leonard is an Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University

The Bode Prize recognizes Leonard’s distinguished contributions to the coordinated control of mobile, multi-agent systems in engineering (robotic teams) and in nature (animal aggregations, human groups). Her work has had both fundamental and practical impact on the field of control systems, including the development of new understanding of how collective motion, collective sensing and collective decision making affect the behavior of groups of individuals interacting with themselves and with their environment.

At Maryland, Leonard was advised by Professor P. S. Krishnaprasad (ECE/ISR), who won the Bode Prize in 2007. Her main field was control theory; she also studied communication theory.

The Bode Prize was established in 1989 to recognize distinguished contributions to control systems science or engineering. It is named for Hendrik W. Bode, the American engineer, researcher, inventor and scientist who was a pioneer of modern control theory and electronic telecommunications during his long career at Bell Labs and Harvard University. The recipient gives a plenary lecture at the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) evaluating a significant contribution to control systems science or engineering. Leonard will give the lecture at the 56th CDC in Melbourne, Australia, Dec. 12–15, 2017.

Published December 16, 2016