Date: July 8th (Tuesday), 2025

Time: 5:10pm - 6:00pm

Location: Majestic Ballroom, Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel

The American Automatic Control Council sponsors a number of awards. These awards recognize excellence in scientific, technological or educational contributions to automatic control.

ACC Best Student Paper Award: 

  • This award recognizes the Outstanding Student Paper finalists and the Best Student Paper at the ACC.

Babatunde A. Ogunnaike Control Practice Award: 

  • Description: The Ogunnaike Award is given to one individual or one team, selected from those nominated, for significant contributions to the advancement of control practice. 
  • Awardee: Francesco Borrelli, University of California, Berkeley
  • Citation: In recognition of transformative contributions to predictive control theory and practice, driving advancements in energy-efficient automotive powertrains, optimized solar energy, and sustainable public transportation.
  • Biography: Francesco Borrelli received his ‘Laurea' degree from the University of Naples Federico II', Italy in 1998, and his PhD from the Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH-Zurich, Switzerland in 2002. He is currently a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, where he conducts research in the field of predictive control. He has received several awards for his contributions to the predictive control field, including the 2009 NSF CAREER Award, the 2012 IEEE Control System Technology Award, and was elected IEEE Fellow in 2016. In 2017, he was awarded the Industrial Achievement Award by the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Council. Professor Borrelli industrial activities focus on the application of predictive control in self-driving vehicles, utility scale solar power plants, automotive control systems, and building energy efficiency control. He was the founder and CTO of BrightBox Technologies Inc, a company focused on cloud-computing optimization for autonomous systems, and was the co-director of the Hyundai Center of Excellence in Integrated Vehicle Safety Systems and Control at UC Berkeley. He is also the founder and CTO of WideSense Inc., a company focused on E-Mobility. Professor Borrelli's research interests include model predictive control, learning, and their application to robotics, transportation, and energy control systems.

Donald P. Eckman Award: 

  • Description: The Donald P. Eckman Award recognizes an outstanding young engineer in the field of automatic control. Nominees must be under the age of 35 on January 1 of the year the award is presented.
  • Awardee: Yang Zheng, University of California, San Diego
  • Citation: For fundamental contributions to convex and nonconvex optimization in optimal and distributed control, scalable computational techniques, and transformative applications in traffic systems.
  • Biography: Yang Zheng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego. He received a bachelor's degree in Vehicle Engineering with a double major in Economics from Tsinghua University in 2013, followed by a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2015. He earned his DPhil (Ph.D.) in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford in 2019. Dr. Zheng then held postdoctoral research positions at Harvard University (2019–2020) and Imperial College London (2021). Dr. Zheng’s research focuses on control theory, convex and nonconvex optimization, and their applications to autonomous vehicles and traffic systems. His contributions have been recognized by several awards, including the 2019 European Ph.D. Award on Control for Complex and Heterogeneous Systems, the 2017–2020 Outstanding Survey Paper Award from IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, the 2022 Best Paper Award in the IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, the 2024 NSF CAREER Award, and the 2024 Jacobs School of Engineering Early Career Faculty Development Award at UC San Diego. He has also received institutional honors, including the National Scholarship from Tsinghua University and the Clarendon Scholarship from the University of Oxford. In recognition of his teaching excellence, Dr. Zheng received the 2023 Best Graduate Teacher Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego.

Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award: 

  • Description: The Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award is given for distinguished career contributions to the theory or application of automatic control.
  • Awardee: James B. Rawlings, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Citation: For developing and expanding theoretical underpinnings of model predictive control (MPC) and moving horizon estimation, impacting MPC software usage and applications in the process industries, and mentoring many practicing control professionals.
  • Biography: James B. Rawlings received the B.S. from the University of Texas and the Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, both in Chemical Engineering. He spent one year at the University of Stuttgart as a NATO postdoctoral fellow and then joined the faculty at the University of Texas. He moved to the University of Wisconsin in 1995, and then to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2018, and is currently the Mellichamp Process Control Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and the co-director of the Texas-Wisconsin-California Control Consortium (TWCCC). Professor Rawlings's research interests are in the areas of chemical process modeling, monitoring and control, nonlinear model predictive control, moving horizon state estimation, and molecular-scale chemical reaction engineering. He has written numerous research articles and coauthored three textbooks: "Modeling and Analysis Principles for Chemical and Biological Engineers," 2nd ed. (2022), with Mike Graham, "Model Predictive Control: Theory Computation, and Design," 2nd ed. (2020), with David Mayne and Moritz Diehl, and "Chemical Reactor Analysis and Design Fundamentals," 2nd ed. (2020), with John Ekerdt. In recognition of his research and teaching, Professor Rawlings has received several awards including: election to the National Academy of Engineering; William H. Walker Award for Excellence in Contributions to Chemical Engineering Literature from the AIChE; Warren K. Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education from the AIChE; "Doctor technices honoris causa" from the Danish Technical University; The inaugural High Impact Paper Award from the International Federation of Automatic Control; The Ragazzini Education Award from the American Automatic Control Council; He is a fellow of IFAC, IEEE, and AIChE.

John R. Ragazzini Education Award: 

  • Description: The John R. Ragazzini Education Award recognizes outstanding contributions to automatic control education in any form. The recipient must have spent a significant part of their career in the United States.
  • Awardee: Dawn Tilbury, University of Michigan
  • Citation: For innovative contributions to control education through web tutorials, videos, in-class labs, and a seminal textbook for computing systems, and for dedicated mentoring of MS and PhD students.
  • Biography: Dawn M. Tilbury is the inaugural Ronald D. and Regina C. McNeil Department Chair of Robotics at the University of Michigan, and the Herrick Professor of Engineering. She received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests lie broadly in the area of control systems, including applications to robotics and manufacturing systems. From 2017 to 2021, she was the Assistant Director for Engineering at the National Science Foundation while maintaining her position at the University of Michigan. She has published more than 200 articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings. She is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of ASME, a Life Member of SWE, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.

O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award: 

  • Description: The O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award recognizes the authors of up to one application paper and one theory paper that were published in the ACC conference proceedings and presented at last year's ACC. 
  • Awardees: Sebastian A. Nugroho, Vishnu P. Chellapandi, and Hoseinali Borhan
  • Citation: For their work “Vehicle Speed Profile Optimization for Fuel Efficient Eco-Driving via Koopman Linear Predictor and Model Predictive Control,” 2024 ACC Proceedings pages 4239-4246”.
  • Biographies: 
    • Sebastian A. Nugroho is a Technical Specialist in connected and intelligent systems research at the Cummins Technical Center, Research and Technology, Cummins Inc. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, in 2012 and 2014, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA, in 2021 under the guidance of Prof. Ahmad Taha. Prior to joining Cummins, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Michigan Power and Energy Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, USA, working under the supervision of Prof. Johanna Mathieu and Prof. Ian Hiskens. His primary research interests lie in control theory and engineering optimization, with applications in energy and transportation systems. At Cummins, his work focuses on designing and developing advanced solutions that address challenges and drive innovation through control, optimization, and machine learning methods across the automotive, transportation, and energy sectors. He has co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications in control and its applications, including journal articles and conference papers. He stays engaged with the academic community, serving as a reviewer for journals and conferences such as IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Control Systems Technology, Power Systems, Smart Grid, Control Systems Letters, Intelligent Transportation Systems, the American Control Conference, and the Conference on Decision and Control. Outside of his professional pursuits, he enjoys playing the piano, composing music, and spending time with his wife and three children.
    • Vishnu Pandi Chellapandi is currently a Senior Technical Specialist with the Connected and Intelligent Systems Group at Cummins Research and Technology, Columbus, IN, USA. He received his B.E. degree from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, Chennai, India, his M.S. degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, and his Ph.D. degree from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. His research interests include federated learning, connected vehicles, distributed optimization, and intelligent systems. Dr. Chellapandi serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Internet of Things Journal and the SAE Journal of Connected and Automated Vehicles.
    • Hoseinali Borhan is a technical manager in connected and intelligent software and controls at Cummins corporate research and technology with experience in control, AI and connectivity software development and applications. In his current position at Cummins, he is leading new product development projects in vehicle automation, powertrain controls and energy systems including connected software and controls solutions toward resilient and efficient decarbonization of medium and heavy-duty vehicles and freight transportation. He has over 15 years of software product development and leadership experience in industry. He has a Ph.D. in dynamic systems and control from Clemson University, SC, USA and an M.B.A. degree from Indiana University, IN, USA. He is an IEEE senior member, SAE AI Task Force chairman and an associate editor for IEEE transactions on control systems technology. He has more than 50 publications in the domain of advanced controls and AI applications.