Claudio Altafini

Background

I received a Laurea degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padova, Italy, in 1996 and a PhD in Optimization and Systems Theory from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in 2001. I then moved to SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies) in Trieste, Italy, where I stayed until 2013. Since 2014 I am a Professor in Automatic Control in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Linkoping University.

Research

My research interests are broadly in the area of modeling and control of nonlinear dynamical systems. Over the years I have been involved with very different applications, ranging from robotics to quantum mechanics, from biological systems to complex networks. In the last few years the focus of my research has been almost exclusively on the last two topics: Systems Biology and Modeling and Control of Complex Networks.

Selected Publications

Complex Networks:
• C. Altafini and G. Lini. Predictable dynamics of opinion forming for networks with antagonistic interactions. IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, 60(2):342-357, 2015.
• C Altafini. Consensus problems on networks with antagonistic interactions. IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, 58 (4), 935-946, 2013.
• G Facchetti, G Iacono, C Altafini. Computing global structural balance in large-scale signed social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (52), 20953-20958, 2011.

Systems Biology:
• G De Palo, G Facchetti, M Mazzolini, A Menini, V Torre, C Altafini. Common dynamical features of sensory adaptation in photoreceptors and olfactory sensory neurons. Scientific reports 3:1251, 2013.
• G Facchetti, M Zampieri, C Altafini Predicting and characterizing selective multiple drug treatments for metabolic diseases and cancer. BMC systems biology 6 (1), 115, 2013.
• N. Soranzo, F. Ramezani, G. Iacono and C. Altafini. Decompositions of large-scale biological systems based on dynamical properties. Bioinformatics, 28(1):76-83, 2012.

Quantum Control:
• C. Altafini and F. Ticozzi. Modeling and Control of Quantum Systems: An Introduction, (tutorial paper) Special Issue on Quantum Control of the IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, 57(8):1898-1917, 2012.

See my publication page for a complete list (and preprints), or my Google scholar page.

Teaching

Starting from 2014 I am teaching the TSRT62 Modeling and Simulation course.

I am also responsible for the PhD course Nonlinear Control, normally given every second year. In 2015 I taught two other PhD courses: Networked Dynamical Systems and Systems Biology: nonlinear mechanistic models. See Teaching page for details.

Master Thesis proposals

I have several topics for Master thesis for Engineering students. Contact me if interested. Here are a few proposals (some in control, some "out of control", so to say):

• Controllability of complex networks
• Investigating Dynamical Models of Opinion Forming on Social Networks
• Investigating Perturbed Metabolic Networks through Flux Balance Analysis
• Minimal models of phototransduction response in vertebrates
• Investigating the structure and organization of a drug-target network
• Inference of T cell gene regulatory networks and master regulators of diseases using ODEs