Dr Andrew Zammit Mangion was awarded a BEng by the University of Malta in 2007 and a PhD by the University of Sheffield in 2012. Currently a postdoc at the University of Bristol, his interests lie in spatiotemporal dynamic modelling and control and Bayesian inference in large-scale systems.

After receiving his award, Andrew said:

Control systems theory has interested me ever since I began my undergraduate studies in engineering at the University of Malta. The subject intrigued me because of the open, inter-disciplinary approach it demanded; for instance signal processing, programming and electronics all featured considerably in the modules I chose. Towards the end of my course I also had the opportunity to briefly work at the German Aerospace Centre and at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on control-related problems and I carried out my final-year project in haptic feedback. The range of applications in which control featured impressed me and by the end of my degree I decided I wanted to further my studies in this field.

One aspect of control which interested me specifically was system identification, a broad suite of methods by which dynamic models may be constructed from observed data. I wanted to see how these, and similar modelling methods tailored for temporal systems, may be extended to spatio-temporal systems with a view to prediction and decision-making. The award of a University Endowed Scholarship by the University of Sheffield allowed me to carry out the research and I was awarded my PhD at the beginning of 2012. The most challenging but also rewarding part of my research was to delve into many different areas, such as machine learning and statistics, in order to meet my research goals.  The interest and recognition my work has received not only from the IET but also from international organisations motivates me to further inquire into this field.