Iven Mareels was born in Aalst Belgium on 11 August 1959. He obtained the (ir) Masters of Electromechanical Engineering from Gent University Belgium in 1982 and the PhD in Systems Engineering from the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia in 1987. Since 1996, he is a Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the University of Melbourne. In June 2007, he became Dean of the School of Engineering.
Previously he was a Reader at the Australian National University (1990-1996), a lecturer at the University of Newcastle (1988-1990) and the University of Gent (1986-1988).
He has received several awards in recognition of his research and teaching. He was a recipient of a 2008 Clunies Ross Award, Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering for his work on Smart Irrigation Systems, work that was also featured at the 2005 IFAC World Congress in Prague at a semi-plenary. In 2007 he received the inaugural Vice-Chancellor?s Knowledge Transfer Excellence award from the University of Melbourne, for his work in large scale irrigation systems with Rubicon Systems Australia. In 2005, he was named IEEE CSS Distinguished Lecturer, and in 1994 received the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Australian National University. He was a co-editor in chief of Systems& Control Letters till December 2007. He has received several awards for his publications.
He is Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Australia, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (USA), a member of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia, Vice-Chair and founding member of the Asian Control Association, and a member of the organising committee for the Asian Control Conference and for the Mathematical Theory in Networks and Systems conference. Over the period Jan 2003-Dec 2005 he was a member of the Board of Governors of the Control Systems Society IEEE. He is registered with the Institute of Engineers Australia as a professional engineer. He is Chair of the National Committee for Automation, Control and Instrumentation and is now Chair of the Technical Board of the International Federation of Automatic Control (and ex-officio Vice-President) for the triennium 2008-2011.
He has extensive experience in consulting for both industry and government. He has strong interests in education. He has taught a broad range of subjects in both mechanical and electrical engineering curricula. He was one of the developers of the Bachelor of Engineering at the Australian National University and one of the architects of the new 3+2 Master of Engineering education at Melbourne. His research interests are in adaptive and learning systems, nonlinear control and modelling. At present he has strong research interests in modelling and controlling of large scale systems, both engineered as well as natural systems, with a particular interest in modelling and control of epilepsy.
Iven Mareels has published widely, 3 research monographs, in excess of 100 journal publications and 150 conference publications. He holds 5 international patents. He has supervised to completion 30 PhD students and is currently supervising 5 PhD students and 2MPhil students.
