Memorial page created to highlight the many contributions and great legacy of Professor Michael Athans, who unfortunately passed away on the 26th of May 2020, at the age of 84. The entire ISR-Lisboa and Técnico communities will share this terrible loss and grief.
A few years after his retirement from the MIT and the LIDS lab, Professor Michael Athans joined ISR and IST as an invited researcher in 1998 and until 2010. Many of us had the pleasure to enjoy his company and learn from his deep intellectual insights and rich experience. He was one of the pioneers of the modern foundations of Control Systems Theory. His contributions to ISR, and IST, were profound and multi-fold. He established seminars and workshops that connected many ISR researchers and activities to leading experts in the systems and control areas. He was always available to advise and inspire younger faculty members and students, and graduated 10 doctoral students at ISR. He taught several doctoral courses in Electrical and Computer Engineering at IST, and advised the ISR board in many occasions. One of his singular contributions to the Portuguese S&T system was a comparative analysis between the academia in Portugal and the USA with several far-reaching recommendations (see link below). We had the privilege to benefit from his constant scientific and intellectual contributions. His involvement and friendship will be deeply missed.