Professor Robert Shorten is joining IOTA as a member of the Research Council. In this role, Robert will focus on advising and helping the research department make strategic decisions.

Robert studied Electronic Engineering at University College Dublin (UCD). In 1990 he moved to Berlin, Germany, where he first worked at AEG Westinghouse on high-speed railway systems, and then later at Daimler Benz Research in Berlin. In 1996, he completed the requirements for his Ph.D. After a short period as a visiting Post Doc in the US, Professor Shorten returned to Ireland in 1997. First to University College Dublin, and then to Maynooth University, where he founded the Hamilton Institute in 2001 with Doug Leith. In 2011–12 he returned to Germany as Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Berlin. In early 2013 he moved to IBM Research, where he led the Optimisation and Control team at IBM Research Smart Cities Research Lab in Dublin, Ireland. Since 2016, he has been Professor of Control Engineering and Decision Science at University College Dublin. He is active in the areas of Stability Theory, Hybrid Dynamical Systems, Congestion Management, Smart Mobility, and Sharing Economy. He is a co-author of two recently published books (AIMD Dynamics and Distributed Resource Allocation and Electric and Plug-in Vehicle Networks: Optimisation and Control) and an editor of the forthcoming book (Analytics for the Sharing Economy: Mathematics, Engineering and Business perspectives).

On joining IOTA Research Council

The Tangle is a very interesting mathematical object, bringing together ideas from graph theory, probability, dynamics and control, as well as game theory. I am looking forward to helping the Research Council to guide some of the fundamental and applied research on this topic.

We are very happy officially announcing Professor Robert Shorten joining the Research Council. His strong research background and extensive experience in collaborating with industry will be a great help in setting the research direction. Give him a warm welcome!