The IFAC Fellow Award is presented to individuals who have made outstanding and extraordinary contributions in the Federation’s field of interest in their roles as engineers, scientists, technical leaders, or educators. The Fellows for the 2020–2023 term were elected by the IFAC Council in London on July 14, based on nominations received and evaluated by a selection committee.
In the case of Dr. Paganini, the nomination was made by Prof. Steven Low of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Caltech (California Institute of Technology), and the citation notes that he was selected for “contributions to robust and distributed control, with applications to communication and power networks.”
When asked about his appointment, Paganini said: "It is a highly prestigious international recognition from the scientific community in which I trained—the field of automatic control. I earned my Ph.D. in this discipline in the 1990s, and although I later worked in a variety of areas, it is always gratifying to be recognized by the community where I began my career."
Founded in Paris in 1957, IFAC is an international organization whose mission is to promote the science and technology of automatic control in all systems—including engineering, physics, biology, social sciences, and economics—both in theory and in practice. It also addresses the impact of control technology on society.