Hamid Ossareh, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at UVM, is a 2023 recipient of the National Science Foundation’s prestigious CAREER award. Ossareh specializes in Dynamical Systems and Control, researching and creating constraint-aware and uncertainty-aware algorithms and software tools for control and decision making in complex environments. Prior to joining UVM, Ossareh was with Ford Motor Company, where he worked as a Research Engineer on advanced automotive control systems. His work has been published in the IEEE and ASME transactions, among others, and he holds numerous patents in the area of automotive systems and control. He regularly presents at conferences, workshops, and seminars.
What interests you most about your work right now?
Automatic Control has played a pivotal role in shaping our modern society through technologies such as the power grid, cars, aircraft, and satellites. Traditionally, the controller design paradigm relied on identifying a mathematical model of the dynamical system for controller selection. However, the increasing complexity of engineered systems poses modeling challenges, resulting in underperforming controllers. Recent advances in sensors and computing have sparked a shift toward a “data-driven” (model-free) paradigm, but these controllers often lack interpretability and are difficult to tune. In my CAREER proposal, I aim to integrate model-based and data-driven paradigms to establish a new framework for control of complex dynamical systems that is easily tunable, interpretable, and provides guarantees of performance and safety. My passion for this field stems from scientific curiosity, theoretical interests, and the potential to revolutionize industries like power systems while creating numerous new possibilities.
What do you love about teaching?
I have a passion for teaching and empowering students with the knowledge, tools, and skills they need to succeed in their careers and make a positive impact on society. Having even a small influence on their lives brings me immense joy. I view course development as an art project, where I can exercise my creative freedom to craft engaging and comprehensive content. From designing the syllabus and creating lecture notes/assignments/exams to conducting office hours, I find great satisfaction in the challenge of creating effective and cohesive learning experiences.
What does winning this award mean to you?
I am honored and privileged by the fact that my proposal stood out among a pool of highly competitive submissions. The experience is quite humbling. This award gives me the freedom to pursue my educational and scientific passions, while at the same time working with undergraduate and graduate students that will become leaders in the field. This award is not mine alone. Credit also goes to my mentors, collaborators, and most importantly, my former and current students.
What projects are you looking forward to working on in the future?
I am excited to continue expanding my research in the area of data-driven control, and apply my research to power systems, automotive, and aerospace application areas.
What do you appreciate about being at UVM?
I love the tight-knit community of friendly faculty and energetic students, and the availability of resources to do cutting edge research.