Prof. Vincent D. Blondel Vincent D. Blondel is professor and head of the department of mathematical engineering at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium. He received an engineering degree, a degree in philosophy, and a PhD in applied mathematics, all from the Université catholique de Louvain, and a MSc in pure mathematics from Imperial College (London, UK). Dr Blondel's major current research interests lie in several area of mathematical control theory and theoretical computer science. For his scientific contributions he has been awarded of a grant from the Trustees of the Mathematics Institute of Oxford University (1992), the prize Agathon De Potter of the Belgian Royal Academy of Science (1993), the prize Paul Dubois of the Montefiore Institute (1993), the triennal SIAM prize on control and systems theory (2001), the prize Adolphe Wetrems of the Belgian Royal Academy of Science (2006), and the Antonio Ruberti prize in systems and control of the IEEE (2006).