Dr John Pittner, is a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. He gained his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. He is a registered Professional Engineer through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He is the lead author of over 45 peer-reviewed conference and archival journal papers on control of metals processing, as well as the book Tandem Cold Metal Rolling Mill Control Using Practical Advanced Methods. He received the US National Science Foundation research grant for investigation of novel control method for tandem hot metal strip mills and owns 4 US patents on control of metals processing applications. He is a peer reviewer for over 40 technical conference and journal papers including IEEE Industry Application Society Transactions, the Journal of Process Control, and Automatica.
Professor Marwan A. Simaan is the Florida 21st Century Chair and Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida, and former Chair and Bell of PA/Bell Atlantic Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his PhD in EE from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1972. His research covers a broad spectrum of topics in control, optimization, and signal processing and has been funded mostly by NSF, DARPA, AFOSR, ONR, and a variety of industrial sources including Gulf Oil and Alcoa. His publications include 5 books, 145 archival journal papers and 245 conference papers. He is a member of US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a Life Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is a Distinguished Alumnus and a recipient of the Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering at the University of Illinois. Dr. Simaan is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.