Vincent Daniel Blondel (born April 28, 1965) is a
Belgian professor of
applied mathematics and current
rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of the
University of Louvain
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
(UCLouvain) and a visiting professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Blondel's research lies in the area of mathematical control theory and theoretical computer science. He is mostly known for his contributions in computational complexity in control, multi-agent coordination and complex networks.
Education
Blondel studied philosophy, mathematics, engineering and computer science in
Louvain-la-Neuve,
Grenoble,
London and
Oxford. He completed a master thesis in engineering at the
Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, he holds a MSc in mathematics from
Imperial College of Science and Technology and a degree in philosophy, a master's degree in engineering (summa cum laude) and a PhD in applied mathematics from
Université catholique de Louvain
The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...
.
Career
In 1993-1994 he was a Göran Gustafsson Fellow at the
Royal Institute of Technology
The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolo ...
(Stockholm) and in 1994-1995 he was a Research Fellow at the
National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in Paris. From 1995 to 1999 he was an assistant professor at the Institute of Mathematics of the
Université de Liège before joining the
Louvain School of Engineering of
UCLouvain where he has been since then. He was a research visitor with the
Australian National University, the
University of California at Berkeley, the
Santa Fe Institute, the Mittag-Leffler Institute of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...
and
Harvard University. He was a visiting professor of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure in Lyon in 1998 and at the
Université Paris VII - Diderot in 1999, 2000 and 2002. In 2005-2006 he was a visiting professor and a Fulbright scholar with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2010-2011 he was a visiting professor with the
MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Blondel is a former associate editor of the European Journal of Control (Springer) and of Systems and Control Letters (Elsevier). He is an editor of the journal ''
Mathematics of Control, Signals, and Systems
''Mathematics of Control, Signals, and Systems'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers research concerned with mathematically rigorous system theoretic aspects of control and signal processing. The journal was founded by Eduardo Sontag ...
'' He has published about 100 journal articles and 6 books.
At UCLouvain, Blondel has founded the Group on Large Graphs and Networks. He has supervised 20 doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and 15 visiting professors. He was department head in 2003-2010 and a university president candidate in 2009.
In 2013, Blondel has become the dean of the
Louvain School of Engineering.
He was elected the Rector of the
University of Louvain
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
for the term 2014-2019, and reelected again in 2019 until 2024.
Honors and awards
* Grant from the Trustees of the Mathematics Institute of Oxford University (1992)
* Prize Agathon De Potter of the Belgian Royal Academy of Science (1993)
* Prize Paul Dubois of the Montefiore Institute (1993)
* Triennal SIAM prize on control and systems theory (2001)
* Prize Adolphe Wetrems of the Belgian Royal Academy of Science (2006)
* Antonio Ruberti prize in systems and control of the IEEE (2006)
* Named a
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2013 for his contributions to computational analysis of
systems
A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...
and
networks.
Teaching
In 2012, he is in charge of the following courses at
UCLouvain :
* LINMA 1691 : Discrete mathematics I : Graphs algorithmics and theory
* LINMA 1702 : Optimisation Models and Methods
* LINMA 2111 : Discrete mathematics II: Algorithms and complexity
* LINMA 2120 : System theory seminar
* LINMA 2472 : Special questions about discrete mathematics.
The last course is following the online course of M. Chiang from Princeton University : "20Q about networks : Friends, Money and Bytes"
References
External links
Home PageUCLouvain PageMathematics Genealogy Project profile Large Graphs and Networks research group (at UCLouvain)Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (at MIT)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blondel, Vincent D
Control theorists
Living people
Academic staff of the Université catholique de Louvain
1965 births
Network scientists
Fellow Members of the IEEE
21st-century Belgian engineers
Belgian computer scientists
Rectors of universities in Belgium