Prof. Dr. Paolo Mercorelli Appointed Section Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Engineering Mathematics” in Mathematics

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Paolo Mercorelli has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Engineering Mathematics” in Mathematics (ISSN: 2227-7390).

Prof. Dr. Paolo Mercorelli received an M.S. (Laurea) in electronic engineering from the University of Florence, Florence, Italy, in 1992 and a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, in 1998. In 1997, he spent one year as a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He participated in the Marie Curie Actions research fellowship program sponsored by the European Commission in 1998, during which he spent his time at ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) Corporate Research, Heidelberg. Thanks to this scholarship, from 1998 to 2001, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) Corporate Research, Heidelberg, Germany. From 2002 to 2005, he was a Senior Researcher with the Institute of Automation and Informatics, Wernigerode, Germany, where he was the Leader of the Control Group. From 2005 to 2011, he was an Associate Professor of process informatics at the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Wolfsburg, Germany. In 2011, he was a Visiting Professor at Villanova University, Philadelphia, USA.

He has been a Distinguished Full Professor (Chair) of Control and Drive Systems at the Institute of Product and Process Innovation, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Lueneburg, Germany, since 2012. His current research interests include mechatronics, signal processing, wavelets, model predictive control, sliding mode control, sensorless control, Kalman filters, knock control, lambda control, and robotics.

In the winter semester of the 2017/2018 academic year, he worked at the Institute of Automatic Control of Lodz University of Technology (Poland) under a Distinguished International Visiting Professor Fellowship. In 2018, he was a Visiting Scientist Fellowship at the Czech Academy of Science of Prague (Czech Republic) with the Institute of Information Theory and Automation (UTIA). As of 2019, he has been working as a lecturer and Visiting Professor at the Ph.D. Schools of the University of Miskolc (Hungary) and University of Craiova (Romania). During the summer semester of 2020, he began working as a lecturer for USAC (University Studies Abroad Consortium), giving online lectures for different American Universities each semester: Nevada University Reno and Las Vegas, Arkansas University and Wright State University. Prof. Dr. Paolo Mercorelli is within the top 2% of scientists in Control Systems in accordance with Elsevier Search Data for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Paolo Mercorelli, who shared his vision for the journal with us as well as his views on the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

It is my honor and pleasure to accept this task with its important mission for different reasons. I think that the field of engineering mathematics has an important purpose in our society—not only in terms of developing new and more human technologies but also in terms of education. As a professor, first of all, I am an educator, and, thus, as Editor-in-Chief of the “Engineering Mathematics” Section of this journal, I would like to emphasize possible future applications that are strongly rooted in mathematical background. This approach will benefit students more directly. It is my wish to emphasize the submission of papers that include a background on their topics, even if brief. The idea is to attract readers, students, and lecturers who can profit from the content of our articles.

More than the aforementioned, I would like to clarify and apply some ethical aspects, as I did in other fields of my life and other occasions throughout my life. I spent ten years living in the Christian community of Opera Madonnina del Grappa in Florence, Italy, sharing this period of my studies assisting children. I also spent one year of my life driving a lorry throughout Albania helping Mother Teresa. It is important for me in this mission as Editor-in-Chief to provide the message of peace in a different way than I have in the past but with the same significance. Under my direction, we will only review papers in which the corresponding authors declare that their results have not come from military applications. If the paper is accepted for publication, the authors must acknowledge that they wish, as I do, that the readers do not apply this knowledge to any form of military application: either military offense or defense. Peace depends on the contributions of each of us. Each war originates from injustices that are carried out by guilty people. In the same way, it is also true that none of us are innocent if we do not contribute to the creation of peace in some way. In some sense, all of us are guilty people because we are not able to leave the categories of war in order to assume the categories of peace. Each war tells us about ourselves. In fact, almost all technological advancements of our era come from war-like technologies, including the internet, for instance. This particular historical period is pressed by oppression, where violence is mixed with our mediocrity, and our response must not be to be scared but to care. Additionally, we must trust in our intelligence to turn the science and, in particular, our intellectual energy of engineering mathematics from potentially bellicose perspectives into serving peace:

Si vis pacem, para pacem! (“If you want peace, prepare for peace!”)

2. What is your vision for the Section?

I see an interesting future for this field and an extremely important mission for this Section. In fact, engineering mathematics develops a mathematical structure in which not strictly mathematical subjects can be examined. Engineering mathematics encompasses a wide range of mathematical methods and shows the practical application of mathematical theories.

Mathematical methods are becoming increasingly important for solving engineering problems. Anyone who studies engineering mathematics today learns how mathematical methods can be used to further develop technology. Algorithms, which can be used to simulate technical processes, play an important role here. Simulation is an essential tool for the development of new products. With its diverse sub-areas, from analysis to optimization, mathematics creates the basis for the further development of numerical methods. In my vision, the “Engineering Mathematics” Section should make space for the techniques and connections that belong to this fascinating science, which will result in new findings that will influence our everyday lives again and again. With this Section, I intend to create an important worldwide platform for research, development, and application in the fields of mathematically oriented sciences—from the development of new algorithms and their implementation on a computer, to prove their functionality. By combining mathematical training with the knowledge of application problems from engineering, a potential reader of our Section can find inspiration to solve current problems and then work with engineering teams to develop the technologies of tomorrow. Our society has set the goal of developing itself into the most dynamic knowledge-based economy, with more and higher qualified jobs and a larger need for social justice. Engineering mathematics can make significant contributions to this goal, and although the role of mathematicians is widely recognized, there is still much room for improvement in the research. In particular, more attention should be paid to mathematical modeling, simulation, optimization, and scientific computing. This applies to both industry and life sciences. In the life sciences, for example, mathematics is used to plan operations and to better understand biological, physiological, social, and more complex systemic processes.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

In this sense, this field of research offers tremendous potential in the context of algorithms. The insights mentioned above are needed to optimize the algorithms that are the basis of all artificial intelligence and the direct product of our field. The quality of these algorithms determines an organization's leadership and develops the trust of users. We have to trust computers and robots. I think that better results do not necessarily come from better intellect, nor do they necessarily come from better computing power—they might just as well come from a better process with human finalities. Additionally, for this, people and machines should interact with as much trust as possible. The society of the future is condemned to trust, so we have to trust algorithms.

I would like to summarise with the mantra: “Think mathematically, act algorithmically!”

Moreover, in this controversial historical period, heavy with injustice and oppression, the field of engineering mathematics and its Section in this journal can provide an important contribution in terms of trust and in terms of believing.

In fact, as I introduced above, this is connected, never more so than it is today, with a higher and more important level of trust and belief in the form of a rational integral humanism in which engineering mathematics contributes to peace: Si vis pacem, para pacem!

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Paolo Mercorelli to his role as Section Editor-in-Chief and look forward to his guidance in leading “Engineering Mathematics” to more milestones.