New scientific director for the Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen

After four years of service, Prof dr H.J. (Erik) Heeres will step down as Scientific Director of the Engineering and Technology institute Groningen (ENTEG). As of January 1, 2023, his role will be taken over by Prof. dr. B. (Bayu) Jayawardhana .

Bayu Jayawardhana received the diploma of Imperial College (DIC) and Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Imperial College London, London, U.K., in 2006 on the output regulation and disturbance rejection of fully-actuated mechanical systems. He conducted post-doctoral research at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath on the analysis and control of systems with hysteresis from October 2006 until June 2007, and continued with another post-doctoral research at Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester from June 2007 until January 2008.
Since 2008, he has been affiliated with University of Groningen as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (2008-2013), an associate professor in the same faculty (2013-2018) and a full professor in mechatronics and control of nonlinear systems in the Faculty of Science and Engineering (2018-present). His research interests include the analysis of nonlinear systems, systems with hysteresis, opto-mechatronics, robotics, renewable energy systems, and systems biology. He received the Faculty Teacher of the Year Award in 2017, Ben Feringa Award in 2020 and a finalist of the Huibregtsenprijs award in 2021. He co-founded two startup companies, Ocean Grazer BV with Antonis Vakis that has won the CES Best Innovation Award 2022, and Sencilia BV with Ajay Kottapalli.
Bayu has been the programme director of the Mechanical Engineering master’s programme and chair of the ENTEG Board since 2019.

We thank Erik for his leadership over the past 4 years, and look forward to working with Bayu in the future.