Declan Bates is Professor of Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Exeter. His research is focused on the development and application of advanced control system design and analysis methods for aerospace and systems biology applications. In collaboration with clinicians, he is now attempting to apply engineering principles to develop novel strategies for treating critically ill patients in intensive care units. He is particularly interested in life threatening respiratory pathologies and how the search for improved treatments might be formulated as a design problem. He is convinced that many seemingly intractable problems can be overcome by collaborations, especially between people from such diverse backgrounds that they are only barely able to understand each other.

Declan has held visiting lecturer positions at the Technical University of Delft, Holland, and the University of Cranfield. He is the co-author of Robust Multivariable Control of Aerospace Systems (Delft University Press, 2002) and Feedback Control in Systems Biology (CRC Press, 2011). From 2004 to 2007 he was the Vice-Chair of the GARTEUR FM-AG17 Action Group on Nonlinear Analysis and Synthesis Techniques in Aircraft Control. From 2007 to 2010 he was a member of BBSRC’s Engineering and Biological Systems Research Committee, and subsequently a core member of BBSRC’s Research Committee C on Technology and Methodological Development. He is currently Vice-Chair of the Research Grants Review Committee of the International Human Frontier Science Program and a member of the editorial board of IET Systems Biology. 

Biography published 2013