Rate My Professor Brian Anderson

Brian Anderson is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Engineering at the Australian National University. He obtained undergraduate degrees in Pure Mathematics (BSc, University Medal, 1962) and Electrical Engineering (BE, University Medal, 1964) from the University of Sydney, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1966. His academic career included early positions as Teaching Fellow at the University of Sydney and research and teaching roles at Stanford University from 1964 to 1967. He then served as Foundation Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Newcastle from 1967 to 1981. At ANU, Anderson was Head of the Department of Systems Engineering from 1982 to 1989, and later Professor and Head from 1994 to 2002, while also directing the Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering during 1994 to 2002. Subsequent roles included inaugural CEO of National ICT Australia (2002-2003), Chief Scientist of NICTA (2003-2006), and Distinguished Researcher at NICTA then Data61-CSIRO from 2006. He held visiting appointments at institutions such as Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, Yale University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Anderson's research spans circuits, signal processing, and control, with current focus on distributed control of multi-agent systems, sensor network localization, target tracking, social networks, and control aspects of epidemics. He has produced over 1,350 research outputs, including 11 books and numerous highly cited papers such as Linear Optimal Control (1971, 2875 citations), Wireless Sensor Network Localization Techniques (2007, 2556 citations), and Network Analysis and Synthesis: A Modern Systems Theory Approach (2013, 2052 citations). His leadership includes President of the International Federation of Automatic Control (1990-1993) and President of the Australian Academy of Science (1998-2002). Major honors encompass Companion of the Order of Australia (2016), Fellow of the Royal Society (1989), Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Engineering (2002), Fellow of IEEE, Australian Academy of Science, and Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, plus IEEE Bode Prize (1992) and multiple honorary doctorates from universities including Sydney, Melbourne, and ETH Zurich. He served on the Prime Minister's Science Council, Australian Science and Technology Council, and boards like Cochlear Limited (1995-2005).