Recently, Prof. Maria Elena Valcher from University of Padua published anarticle named “Discovering China” on IEEE Control Systems Magazine December2015, writing about her trips to China as IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS)president earlier in 2015, when she was invited to the 27th Chinese Control andDecision Conference (2015 CCDC) in Qingdao, the 34th Chinese Control Conference(CCC) and SICE Annual Conference 2015 in Hangzhou, and Northeastern University(NEU) in Shenyang.
Prof. Maria Elena Valcher visited NEU on Jul. 29th, 2015.
“Focusing on research activity, I wouldlike to mention that the visit to NEU in Shenyang was impressive under allviewpoints, first of all because of the time at which it took place! I wasexpected to land in Shenyang around midday, but my flight was delayed byseveral hours, and I landed the Shenyang airport past 6 p.m.
After a wonderful dinner, Prof. Chai encouraged me to visit The State KeyLaboratory of Synthetical Automation for Process Industries that he leads. TheState Key Lab is just astonishing for the number of people working there, theresearch funds it is able to attract, and the number of science and technologyawards it has received. I refer you to http://english.neu.edu.cn/key_laboratory/key1.html for more details. I believe that what Prof. Chai has been able to achievehas no equivalent in the academic world of automation.
The State Key Lab was not the only lab I visited that evening, and also theothers were impressive for the number of students (yes, the labs after 9 p.m.were still well populated!) and the top-level research activities developed. Iwas quite impressed by the fact that some labs were monitoring and controlling,in real time, the activities of external plants, and this required a continuouspresence of personnel in the lab.
My experience in China really made me aware of howactive, engaged, and enterprising the Chinese control community is.” She writes in the article.
