Kirsten Anna Morris (born 1960) is a Canadian applied mathematician specializing in

control theory Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a ...

, including work on flexible structures, smart materials,

hysteresis Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of ...

, and

infinite-dimensional optimization In certain optimization problems the unknown optimal solution might not be a number or a vector, but rather a continuous quantity, for example a function or the shape of a body. Such a problem is an infinite-dimensional optimization problem, becaus ...

. She is a professor at the University of Waterloo, the former chair of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

Activity Group on Control and Systems, the author of two books on control theory, and an IEEE Fellow.

Education and career

Morris was motivated to study mathematical economics at

Queen's University at Kingston Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than of land throughout Ontario and owns Herstmonceux Castle in East Suss ...

by a job doing

econometrics Econometrics is the application of Statistics, statistical methods to economic data in order to give Empirical evidence, empirical content to economic relationships.M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of ...

at a bank, but lost interest in the economic applications of mathematics after a year, instead switching into a program in mathematics and engineering, which she finished in 1982. She became interested in control theory while studying for a master's degree at the University of Waterloo. After completing the degree in 1984, she continued at Waterloo as a doctoral student, and earned her Ph.D. there in 1989. Her dissertation, ''Finite-Dimensional Control of Infinite-Dimensional Systems'', was supervised by

Mathukumalli Vidyasagar Mathukumalli Vidyasagar (born 29 September 1947) is a leading control theorist and a Fellow of Royal Society. He is currently a Distinguished Professor in Electrical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad. Previously he was the Cecil & Ida Green (II) C ...

. After a year as a staff scientist at the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Langley Research Center The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. It directly borders Langley Air Force Base and the Back River on the Chesapeake Bay. LaRC has fo ...

, she returned to Waterloo as an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics in 1990. She became a full professor there in 2003, and also holds a cross-appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. She chaired the

Activity Group on Control and Systems from 2018 to 2019, and has held leadership positions in the IEEE Control Systems Society and the

International Federation of Automatic Control The International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), founded in September 1957, is a multinational federation of 49 national member organizations (NMO), each one representing the engineering and scientific societies concerned with automatic c ...

Books

Morris is the author of the books ''Introduction to Feedback Control'' (Harcourt-Brace, 2001) and ''Controller Design for Distributed Parameter Systems'' (Springer, 2020). She is the editor of ''Control of Flexible Structures: Papers from the Workshop on Problems in Sensing, Identification and Control of Flexible Structures held in Waterloo, Ontario, June 1992'' (

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, 1993).

Recognition

In 2020, Morris was named an IEEE Fellow, affiliated with the IEEE Control Systems Society, "for contributions to control and estimator design for infinite-dimensional systems". She was named a

SIAM Fellow The SIAM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognizes outstanding members of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). The goal of the program is to: *honor SIAM members who are recognized by their peers as distinguished ...

in the 2021 class of fellows, "for contributions to modeling, approximation, and control design for distributed parameter systems". She is also a Fellow of the

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Kirsten 1960 births Living people Canadian mathematicians Canadian women mathematicians Applied mathematicians Control theorists Queen's University at Kingston alumni University of Waterloo alumni Academic staff of the University of Waterloo Fellows of the IEEE Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics