George Pappas

George J. Pappas is the UPS Foundation Professor of Transportation in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science. He holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Computer and Information Science and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. Pappas serves as Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in Penn Engineering and Director of the Raj and Neera Singh Program in Artificial Intelligence. He previously chaired the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering and acted as Deputy Dean for Research. His research develops methods for the control of hierarchical and distributed systems, including hybrid systems that merge control and computing. Applications encompass coordinated motion of UAVs and multi-robot systems, safety analysis of medical devices, and behavior of biological networks.

Pappas received his B.S. magna cum laude and M.S. in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1991 and 1992, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley in 1998. He has earned major honors including election to the National Academy of Engineering in 2024, the IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award in 2025, IFAC Fellowship in 2020, IEEE Fellowship in 2009, NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2004, Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize in 2010, George S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award in 2009, and George H. Heilmeier Faculty Excellence Award in 2015, along with numerous best paper awards at ICRA, CDC, ACC, and others. With over 57,000 citations on Google Scholar, his contributions include publications such as "Sharp Rates in Dependent Learning Theory: Avoiding Sample Size Deflation for the Square Loss" (ICML 2024), "Conformal Prediction with Learned Features" (ICML 2024), "Layered Multirate Control of Constrained Linear Systems" (2025), and award-winning works on multi-robot systems and cyber-physical systems. Pappas has mentored more than fifty students and postdocs, many now faculty at leading universities worldwide.

Professional Email: pappasg@seas.upenn.edu