Roberto Tempo

He graduated in Electrical Engineering in 1980 at Politecnico di Torino, joined the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) at the research institute IEIIT, Torino, serving as a Director of Research of Systems and Computer Engineering since 1991. He also served in visiting and research positions at Tsinghua University and Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Kyoto University, The University of Tokyo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, German Aerospace Research Organization in Oberpfaffenhofen and Columbia University in New York City.

The success of the distributed randomized methods proposed by Roberto Tempo is witnessed by the monograph “Randomized Algorithms for Analysis and Control of Uncertain Systems”, that was published by Springer-Verlag, and that represents a pioneering textbook, lying the foundations of probabilistic methods in the analysis and design of systems affected by deterministic and stochastic uncertainty, and also encompassing statistical learning theory and sequential methods for control.

His last research activity was dedicated to opinion dynamics and led to the Science paper “Network Science on Belief System Dynamics Under Logic Constraints”, written in collaboration with Noah E. Friedkin, A. V. Proskurnikov, and S. E. Parsegov. This seminal paper proposes a mathematical model that describes the relationship and time-varying behaviour of belief systems and interpersonal influence.

He served the IEEE Control System Society (CSS) in various forms: he was Vice-President for Conference Activities (2002-2003), President-Elect (2009) and President (2010). He was also Program Chair of the first joint IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) and European Control Conference (Seville, Spain, 2005) and General Co-Chair for IEEE CDC (Firenze, Italy, 2013).

He also was an officer of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) as Chair of the Italian National Member Organization, and Editor in Chief of the IFAC flagship journal Automatica (since 2015). He also served as member of the IFAC Fellow Selection Committee, 2011-2014 and 2015-2017.

Roberto Tempo was a passionate skier, hiker and climber. He was national instructor of ski mountaineering of the Italian Alpine Club and a keen climber, climbing 7a difficulties. His love for the mountains was well known within the control community and to the two passions of his life he had devoted his last President's of the IEEE Control System Society Message, titled "Mountains and Control"

• 2014: IEEE Control Systems Magazine Outstanding Paper Award for the paper titled “The PageRank Problem, Multi-Agent Consensus and Web Aggregation: A Systems and Control Viewpoint,” by H. Ishii and R. Tempo which appeared in IEEE Control Systems Magazine, Vol. 34, pp. 34–53, 2014
• 2011: Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna
• 2007: IFAC Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control
• 2005: Distinguished Member Award of the IEEE Control Systems Society for "Significant Technical Contributions and Outstanding Long-Term Service"
• 2000: IEEE Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for "contributions to robust identification and control of uncertain systems"
• 1990: IFAC Outstanding Paper Prize Award for the three year period 1990-1992 for the paper titled “The Robust Root Locus,” by B. R. Barmish and R. Tempo which appeared in Automatica, Vol. 26, pp. 283–292, 1990