Dear DISC members,
In this new year, we have received a number of exciting updates and initiatives that are led and organized by DISC members.
First, we congratulate Tom Oomen (TU/e), Hassan HosseinNia (TU Delft), Wouter Hakvoort (University of Twente), and Saeed Ahmed (University of Groningen) on securing three NWO research grants within the NGF programme NXTGEN Hightech, focused on the development of high-tech systems. Three out of the eight funded consortia are led by DISC members, highlighting the central role of our field in advancing high-tech systems.
In addition to the current DISC courses on Distributed Parameter Systems, given by Hans Zwart and Orest Iftime, and on Nonlinear Control Systems, given by Bart Besselink, Erik Steur, and Michelle Chong, DISC will shortly organize the DISC Winter School 2026 on “Contraction Theory for Learning-based Control of Nonlinear Systems”. The winter school will take place from January 27 to January 29, 2026, at Eindhoven University of Technology and will be taught by Hiroyasu Tsukamoto (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Nathan van de Wouw (Eindhoven University of Technology). We are pleased to receive excellent registration numbers, with participants from all over the world, and the final available spot has already been filled. We would like to thank and wish the organizers, Sebastiaan van den Eijnde and Amritam Das, every success in running this DISC Winter School.
We are also pleased to announce that DISC and EECI (European Embedded Control Institute) have agreed to collaborate on the organization of joint courses and on the mutual recognition of ECTS credits. This marks an important development in Europe, demonstrating unity and shared interests that, in turn, strengthen pan-European collaboration in systems and control. Within the EECI-DISC collaboration framework, all DISC students will automatically receive ECTS credits upon completion of any EECI course. Moreover, EECI courses organized in the Netherlands by DISC members will be incorporated into the DISC programme. In this context, we invite all DISC PhD students to participate in the first joint EECI-DISC Spring School on “Formal Methods in Control Design: Abstraction, Optimization, and Data-driven Approaches”, which will be held at TU Delft from April 13 to April 17, 2026. The spring school will be given by Calin Belta (University of Maryland) and Antoine Girard (Laboratory of Signals and Systems, CNRS – CentraleSupélec and University of Paris-Saclay).
UnitDISC has been working diligently to organize the first DISC Best Teacher Award, which will be presented at the Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control 2027. The first batch of questionnaires from participating DISC PhD students has been collected and analyzed and will play a critical role in the assessment process. To ensure the success of this initiative, UnitDISC encourages all DISC PhD students to complete the questionnaires after finishing each DISC course and to provide detailed comments. Your input is indispensable in this highly competitive award, which reflects the excellence of the many outstanding teachers delivering DISC courses. We thank all UnitDISC members for their efforts in continuously improving the quality of the DISC programme.
Finally, the DISC Board, together with the DISC management team, is currently reviewing the financing of DISC as part of the renewal of the joint agreement with the DISC supporting Dutch universities. In the new financial model, we expect to introduce membership fees for research groups. These fees will help lower course fees for DISC PhD students and encourage active participation of DISC groups in the DISC programme. Further details of the proposed financial model will be announced in due course.
Happy New Year 2026! Let us make this year another fantastic year for DISC.
Bayu Jayawardhana, scientific director DISC
Maaike Kraeger-Holland, office manager DISC
Sergio Grammatico (Delft Center for Systems and Control, TU Delft) has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant in the 2025 competition. The ERC selects excellent mid‑career researchers from across Europe to support ambitious research projects under the Horizon Europe programme. In the 2025 call, the ERC awarded 349 Consolidator Grants to outstanding applicants with competitive proposals, advancing frontier research in a wide range of disciplines.
Sergio’s project is entitled ARGON (Data Driven Game Theoretic Control for Constrained Systems).
https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/erc-2025-consolidator-grants-results
**************
Mattia Bianchi (ETH Zurich; formerly DCSC, TU Delft) and Sergio Grammatico (DCSC, TU Delft) have received the IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems (TCNS) Best Paper Award for their article “The END: Estimation Network Design for Games under Partial‑Decision Information”, 2024.
The award recognizes outstanding scientific contribution to the theory and applications of networked control systems. The paper introduces the Estimation Network Design (END) framework, a novel methodology for designing distributed decision‑making algorithms that efficiently exploit sparsity in multi‑agent equilibrium problems with partial‑decision information.
The award was presented at the 2025 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) and highlights advances in scalable distributed optimization and game equilibrium seeking under communication constraints.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCNS.2024.3393668
DISC has made a start with the DISC course programme 2026-2027.
Please be invited to send us suggestions for
course topics and – as lecturer – your own course initiative. For the latter, you can send us your proposal with the Template Course description.2627
Thank you for sending us your topics of interest cq proposals to secr-disc-me@tudelft.nl – before 1 March 2026.
EECI – DISC Spring School – Formal Methods in Control Design: Abstraction, Optimization, and Data-driven Approaches
M05 DELFT
Date: 13/04/26-17/04/26
Location: TU Delft, the Netherlands
Lecturers: Calin Belta, University of Maryland, USA;
Antoine Girard, CNRS, CentraleSupélec, France
Number EC: 3 (after receipt of the certificate of grade from EECI)
Registration and further information: eeci-igsc.eu and https://www.eeci-igsc.eu/modules/m05-delft-2025-2026
Benelux Meeting 2026 – March 24–26, 2026 in Lommel, Belgium.
More information and registration can be found on Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control 2026.
We are pleased to invite you to send in proposals for the DISC Summer School 2026, and also for the DISC Summer School 2027. You can use the following instructions: Template_DISC_summer_school_proposals. Examples of DISC Summer Schools in the past can be found on Summer School – DISC (tudelft.nl) .
Thank you for sending us your proposal before 15 February 2026 to secr-disc-me@tudelft.nl with
cc to dir-disc-me@tudelft.nl
Please mention clearly for which year your proposal is meant (2026 or 2027).
The Board of DISC will decide which proposal will be applied for the DISC Summer School 2026 and 2027.
We look forward to receiving your proposals!
Winter School on Marine Robotics – Munich, February 9-13, 2026
We are pleased to announce the Winter School on Advancing Marine Robotics for a Cleaner Ocean, taking place in Munich, Germany, from February 9-13, 2026, as part of the SeaClear2.0 project ( SEACLEAR2 | MARINE LITTER PREVENTION)
Link with full information:
SeaClear2.0 Winter School 2026 – Lehrstuhl für Informationstechnische Regelung
About the Winter School
The winter school aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from maritime robotics, control, perception, and environmental engineering to tackle marine debris remediation as a real-world autonomy problem. Building on the latest SeaClear2.0 latest advancements, the program focuses on the unsolved technical constraints that dominate marine deployments: vision in degraded conditions (low light, turbidity, domain shift), grasping and manipulation of unstructured debris, robust planning and control under uncertainty, and hard hardware limits in communication, compute, and energy.
We will highlight key challenges, current developments, and results from real-world trials focused on identifying and collecting litter from the seabed under varying environmental conditions.
The format combines lectures and tutorials with short participant introductions (2-minute pitches) to encourage cross-disciplinary exchange. The goal is to connect real field needs (site conditions, operational constraints) with robotics task formulations that can hold up in real deployments, and to highlight research questions that matter in practice.
DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS:
TARGET GROUP:
Late-stage master students, PhD students, and post-doctoral researchers
REGISTRATION DETAILS:
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:
Interested candidates should submit until 31.01.2026:
– Short CV
– Motivation paragraph explaining their interest in the winter school
Accepted applicants will be notified with registration and payment details. Accommodation information will be provided to participants.
For more information and updates, please visit
SeaClear2.0 Winter School 2026 – Lehrstuhl für Informationstechnische Regelung
or contactwinterschool.itr@xcit.tum.de
We look forward to welcoming participants from across the robotics, control and environmental engineering community to this exciting event focused on marine conservation and autonomous systems.
Stefan Sosnowski
SeaClear2.0 Winter School Organizing Committee
———————–
Registration now open: Identification in dynamic networks
The Belgian Graduate School SOCN is organizing a three-day PhD course on “Identification in Dynamic Networks”, lectured by Prof. Paul Van den Hof (TU/e). The course will take place from Wednesday 4 March 2026 to Friday 6 March 2026, at the campus of the VUB in Brussels. DISC members can participate at a reduced rate of € 50.
The course will start on March 4, 2026
Title: Identification in dynamic networks
Lecturer: Paul M.J. Van den Hof, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Dates: March 04, 05, 06, 2026
The course will take place at VUB Brussels
Registration is open via our On-line form
For further information see the SOCN site.
UC Louvain IC Team
Pascale Premereur
Name: Robin Bulsink
Start date: 1 November 2025
Job title: PhD
E-mail: r.m.bulsink@rug.nl
University and Department/Group: Systems and Control, University of Groningen
Supervisor: Prof. dr. ir. Bart Besselink
Project: Contract Synthesis for Systems Engineering
Introduction: After completing both my bachelor’s and master’s in Applied Mathematics here in Groningen, I was very happy to get the opportunity to pursue a PhD here as well. My project concerns contract theory, which allows for an efficient description of desired specifications on complex engineering systems. Starting with a system consisting of interconnected modules, we will research the distribution of specifications on the total system to specifications on the individual modules. Outside of mathematics, my interests include fitness, reading classic books, and cooking (I hope I don’t sound boring!). I look forward to meeting you all, and working together in the future.
Name: Chenchao Wang
Start date: 1 October 2025
Job title: PhD
E-mail: chenchao.wang@rug.nl
University and Department/Group: University of Groningen Systems, control, and optimization group
Supervisor: Prof. Kanat Camlibel
Project: Data-driven control
Short introduction: Hey everyone, I’m Chenchao. I am a visiting PhD student from Beihang University. My research interests include data-driven control and learning-based control. Outside of research, I enjoy sports—especially badminton—and music. It is a pleasure to meet you all.
Name: Lars Bartels
Start date: November 15th 2025
Job title: PhD
E-mail: L.C.Bartels@tudelft.nl
University and Department/Group: TU Delft, Cognitive Robotics, Learning and Autonomous Control
Supervisor: Cosimo Della Santina
Project: Model-Based Control of Soft Robotics)
Introduction:
Before joining TU Delft, I studied Robotics, Systems and Control at ETH Zürich, where I also gained some first research experience. My most substantial research project so far focused on learning-based model predictive control with applications in autonomous car racing. During my PhD, I will continue working on control-related challenges, but shifting my application focus toward soft robotics, which represents a completely new, yet certainly exciting, domain for me.
Outside of control theory, I occsasionally try my best at playing some chess, although my mild addiction to online speedchess can sometimes outweigh my skill level. Perhaps somewhat stereotypical for a Swiss person, I’m also very enthusiastic about skiing, but unfortunately the opportunities to do so are much more rare than I’d like them to be.
Name: Diego Martínez Baselga
Start date: 15 November 2025
Job title: Postdoctoral Researcher
E-mail: d.martinezbaselga-1@tudelft.nl
University and Department/Group: TU Delft, Cognitive Robotics, Learning and Autonomous Control
Supervisor: Javier Alonso-Mora
Introduction:
I’m originally from Spain, where I completed my PhD at the University of Zaragoza. My research lies at the intersection of learning, control, and geometric methods for single- and multi-robot motion planning, and I will continue exploring these topics in the project I’m joining, which focuses on risk-aware navigation. Outside of work, I enjoy sports such as rugby, football, and bouldering, as well as travelling and sharing beers with friends. I’m excited to be joining the team and look forward to meeting everyone!
Name: Yanbo Wang
Start date: 01-12-2025
Job title: PostDoc
E-mail: y.wang-27@tudelft.nl
University/Deparment/Group: CoR-LAC
Supervisor: Javier Alonso-Mora
Introduction: I will be working on the INTERACT project, focusing on real-time motion planning in human populated environments. We model the environment dynamics using generative models to enable robotic imagination and, in turn, realistic planning. By combining learned-based approaches and model-based approaches, we aim to achieve generalisable and efficient planning. In my spare time, I play a bit tennis.
Name: Laurens van der Wal
Start date: 1 December 2025
Job title: PhD
E-mail: l.e.v.d.wal@tue.nl
University and Department/Group: TU/e, CST section
Supervisor: Michel Reniers and Anton Wijs
Project: GUESS
Introduction:
My name is Laurens, 27 years of age, and I am the newest PhD student to join your research group!
I finished my Master’s in Computer Science this summer, and wanted to continue my scientific endeavors so now you’re all stuck with me! I joined Michel’s supervisory control group to work on the GUESS project, where we attempt to enhance the controller synthesis process by performing parallel tasks on the GPU. While I have no prior experience with controller synthesis itself, my prior research interests have been broadly focussed on model checking with an emphasis in quantitative analysis for probabilistic and hybrid(dynamic) systems.
Outside of the University I have been a member of Scouting my entire life, so if you ever need to start a fire from scratch you know where to find me. In my spare time I enjoy to read, play video games, or play a classic board game with friends with my favorite game being Dominion.
I hope I will have the chance of getting to know you all better over the course of the next four years!
Name: Mauricio Sotelo Gonzales
Start date: 1 December 2025
Job title: PhD
E-mail: m.sotelo.gonzalez1@tue.nl
University and Department/Group: TU/e, CST section
Supervisors: Niek Doelman & Gert Witvoet
Project: EU FOCAL
Name: Junhwi (Johnny) Mun
Start date: 1 January 2026
Job title: PhD
E-mail: j.mun@tue.nl
University and Department/Group: TU/e, CST section
Supervisors: Frank Willems & Emilia Silvas
Short introduction:
Hi, my name is Junhwi, and I am from South Korea. As my name can be difficult to pronounce, please feel free to call me Johnny. I am a new PhD student, co-supervised by Prof. Frank Willems and Prof. Emilia Silvas.
I earned my bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Groningen and my master’s degree in Systems and Control from TU Delft. From Groningen and Delft to Eindhoven, I will have experienced relatively many universities, perhaps more than most Dutch students 🙂
My main motivation for continuing my studies as a PhD student is pure curiosity. I wanted to deepen my knowledge of control systems, and at the same time, I did not want my studies to remain purely theoretical but to focus strongly on real-world applications. My research aims to contribute to future electrified vehicles, particularly in the context of charging roads. I have three main research focuses: anomaly detection, energy demand prediction, and multi-vehicle allocation on charging roads to achieve optimal efficiency. These three topics will be closely interconnected toward the realization of a smart EV ecosystem.
Outside of my academic background, I enjoy playing football. I used to play regularly every Friday in Delft and often joined the Monday League at TU Delft. Please let me know if you are aware of any teams or regular football sessions here. I would love to join! Also, this is the heaviest snow I have seen in the Netherlands, so I am hoping for warmer weather and better conditions for football soon.
I look forward to getting to know you all better over the course of the next four years.
Name: Alessandro Piazza
Start date: 1 January 2026
Job title: PostDoc
E-mail: a.p.piazza1@tue.nl
University and Department/Group: TU/e, CST section
Name: Benny Geerings
Starting date: 12-01-2026
Function: PhD
E-mail: b.b.geerings@tue.nl
Group: Dynamics & Control
Supervisor: Nathan van de Wouw & Erik Steur
Project: ENGINE
Introduction:
My name is Benny Geerings, I am 26 years old and am glad to announce that I have recently graduated and will be joining the Dynamics and Control section as a PhD student starting January 12th.My research will focus on Contract Theory for modular system verification, where the goal is to create a robust mathematical framework for translating design specifications on module level to guarantees on integrated system level. The project is part of a collaboration between the TU/e and University of Groningen (RUG), with as first promoter Nathan van de Wouw, and I will be under the supervision of Erik Steur. I am excited to start this new and challenging chapter here at D&C and am looking forward to working with all of you these coming years!
Name: Fritz Engeln
Starting date: 1-9-2025
Job title: PhD
E-mail: f.a.engeln@tudelft.nl
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC-Team van Wingerden
Supervisor: Prof.dr.ir. J.W. van Wingerden
Project: Control of future wind farms (HKN Wind Farm Control
Short introduction:
Hello everyone! My name is Fritz and I will start as a PhD student in September, working on data-driven wind farm control. I did my Master’s in Mechatronics at Hamburg University of Technology in Germany and came to Delft to write my Master’s thesis in data-driven control. I enjoyed it here so much that I decided to stay for my PhD. Outside the university, I enjoy being active outdoors. I love sailing and the Netherlands offers perfect opportunities for that, and I also like to go for runs.
Name: Darya Biparva
Starting date: 1-9-2025
Job title: Postdoc
E-mail: d.biparva@tudelft.nl
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC-Team Mazo
Supervisor: Dr. M. Mazo Espinosa
Project: Development of Systems Biology Tools for Crop Resilience.
Short introduction:
Hello everyone! My name is Darya Biparva, and I have recently joined DCSC as a postdoctoral researcher. I recently completed my PhD at the University of Minnesota, where my research focused on the intersection of System Identification, Causal Inference, and Interpretable Machine Learning. At TU Delft, I will be working on the project “Development of Systems Biology Tools for Crop Resilience.” The goal of this project is to develop data-driven models to build biological mechanisms involving crop resilience. I am excited to start this project as I’ve always liked to explore modeling biological systems. I’m very happy to be part of DCSC and look forward to meeting with you all. Feel free to reach out via email or find me on the second floor to chat. I also enjoy climbing, so if you’re interested, please let me know!
Name: Ernst Lock
Starting date: 1-9-2025
Job title: Junior Lecturer
E-mail: e.a.lock@tudelft.nl
University and Department/Group:TUD-DCSC-Team De Schutter
Supervisor: Profdr.ir. B. De Schutter
Short introduction:
My name is Ernst Lock and I am excited to be the new Junior Docent at DCSC! I recently graduated from Mechanical Engineering, for which I wrote my thesis about flow. My thesis was about creating flow, a focused mental state, in humans when working with a robot. The combination of people, psychology and technology and how that all comes together is something I am very passionate about. I am looking forward to sharing my passion with future generations, hence this is why I decided to become a teacher.
A little bit more about myself: I play the drums and do judo. Other hobbies include travelling, playing (board) games, painting minifigures and spending time with friends.
I look forward to meeting you all and working together, I hope to have a chat with everyone.
Name: Fotios Theodorakis
Starting date: 15-1-2026
Job title: PhD candidate
E-mail: f.theodorakis@tudelft.nl
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC-Team Van Wingerden
Supervisor: Prof.dr.ir. J.W. van Wingerden
Project: NWO Hybrid labs: active mooring lines for floating wind turbine control
Candidate: Frederiek Wesel
University and Department/Group: TUD – DCSC
Thesis title: Tensor-based kernel methods
Promotor: Date: 14-11-2025
Candidate: Clara Menzen
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC
Thesis title: Tensor networks for scalable probabilistic modeling
Promotor: Dr. M. Kok
Date: 28-11-2025
Candidate: Kanghui He
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC
Thesis title: Learning-based control under constraints: Towards safety and computational efficiency.
Promotor: Prof.dr.ir. B. De Schutter, Dr.ir. A.J.J. van den Boom, Dr.ir. S. Shi
Date: 20-1-2026
Location: Aula, Senaatszaal
Time: 10.00 hrs
Candidate: Mathyn van Dael
University and Department/Group: TU/e, CST section
Thesis title: Data-driven control of Gravitational Wave detectors
Promotors: Tom Oomen, Gert Witvoet & Bas Swinkels (Nikhef)
Date: 23 January 2026
Location: Atlas 0.710
Time: 11:00h
Candidate: Mees van Vondelen
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC
Thesis title: In Rhythm with the Wind: Synchronized Wake Mixing in Wind Farms
Promotor: Prof.dr.ir. J.W. van Wingerden, Dr.ir. S.P. Mulders
Date: 28-1-2026
Location: Aula, Senaatszaal
Time: 17.30 hrs
Candidate: Rudi Coppola
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC
Thesis title: Abstraction Learning with Guarantees: Data-Driven Approaches to Symbolic Control and Verification
Promotor: Dr. M. Mazo Espinosa
Date: 3-2-2026
Location: Aula, Senaatszaal
Time: 17.30 hrs
Candidate: Roger Moens
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC
Thesis title: Structured and Low-Rank Decompositions for Large-Scale Imaging Datasets
Promotor: Dr.ing. R. Van de Plas, Prof.dr.ir. B. De Schutter
Date: 6-2-2026
Location: Aula, Senaatszaal
Time: 15.00 hrs
Candidate: Emanuel Taschner
University and Department/Group: TUD-DCSC
Thesis title: Large-Eddy Simulations of Helix Active Wake Control: Sensitivity, Robustness and Advanced Actuator Line Modelling
Promotor: Prof.dr.ir. J.W. van Wingerden, Dr.ir. R.A. Verzijlbergh
Date: 9-2-2026
Location: Aula, Senaatszaal
Time: 15.00 hrs
