Professor Ilya Kolmanovsky appointed Pierre T. Kabamba Collegiate Professor of Aerospace Engineering
Professor Pierre T. Kabamba remembered through Collegiate Professorship
Professor Ilya Kolmanovsky has been appointed as the Pierre T. Kabamba Collegiate Professor of Aerospace Engineering and will be honored at a celebratory event on Tuesday, October 1, 2024. The University of Michigan awards collegiate professorships to prominent faculty members, as the distinction stands as an important means of honoring faculty members who have contributed significantly to the university.
“I am truly honored to be named Pierre T. Kabamba Professor of Aerospace Engineering. Professor Kabamba is a role model for researchers in our field. His contagious sense of intellectual excitement and curiosity, his unwavering dedication to rigor, clarity and depth, and to his students and colleagues have profoundly influenced me both during my formative years as a researcher and after I joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering as a senior faculty Member,” Professor Kolmanovsky commented upon receiving the professorship.
“I would also like to express my deep gratitude to my mentors, colleagues and students, both inside and outside of our department at the University of Michigan, for their support, collaboration guidance and making a very positive difference in my academic and professional journey.”
Kolmanovsky is a graduate of the U-M Department of Aerospace Engineering, receiving both his MS, MA and PhD from the University of Michigan before joining the esteemed list of faculty members in 2010. Prior to becoming a professor, he was at the Ford Research and Advanced Engineering in Dearborn, Michigan, as a Postdoctoral Researcher, Technical Specialist, Staff Technical Specialist and Technical Leader, addressing challenges and opportunities in control systems for advanced powertrain and propulsion systems.
As a leader in his field, Kolmanovsky has focused his recent research on control theory and has been advancing methods for protecting systems from violating safety constraints during their operation. In particular, he has been focusing on Model Predictive Control (MPC) which utilizes onboard constrained trajectory optimization to optimally maneuver the vehicles. His research involved developing MPC formulations with guaranteed closed loop properties that are effective in aerospace and automotive applications, on novel numerical algorithms for fast and reliable onboard optimization, and on supervisory schemes (called computational governors, stability governors and feasibility governors) which assist onboard optimizers in reliably and quickly finding solutions.
Most recently, along with his students and collaborators, he has been looking to these methods to address challenges and develop new capabilities for safe spacecraft autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations, and for engine emissions reduction in commercial heavy-duty vehicles. Professor Kolmanovsky has also been developing methods for cislunar positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) to facilitate spacecraft operation between Earth and the Moon, and for improving electric vehicle (EV) range estimation accuracy to alleviate range anxiety of EV owners here on Earth.
Kolmanovsky’s notable accomplishments include being a Fellow of various professional societies including Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He is also an Associate Fellow of AIAA and holds the current appointment as the Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology. Additionally, he holds 105 United States patents, has been the recipient of various prestigious awards and accolades, and has advised 27 PhD graduates while currently advising six more PhD students.
Collegiate Professorships at U-M are awarded by the College, allowing the professor selected for a professorship to choose their associated title. This is typically done to honor a former faculty member or academic leader. Kolmanovsky stated that he chose the Kabamba title due to him having been both a great role model and a source of great inspiration throughout his career.
“I have known Professor Kabamba since the early 90’s when I was a graduate student in the department. I was most fortunate to have him as a colleague and benefit from his advice, encouragement, insight and collaboration on departmental matters when I rejoined the department as a faculty in January of 2010,” Kolmanovsky stated. “I believe the establishment of a collegiate professorship position in Professor Kabamba’s name serves as an additional way to preserve the memory of Professor Kabamba and continue his legacy.”
About Professor Pierre T. Kabamba
Professor Pierre T. Kabamba is remembered throughout the Michigan Aerospace Department as a distinguished controls engineer and Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. Originally from Democratic Republic of Congo, Professor Kabamba received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1981. Then in 1983, he joined the University of Michigan’s Aerospace Engineering Department after receiving his undergraduate degree in Belgium and his doctorate from Columbia University.
During his time at Michigan, Kabamba taught Introduction to Aerospace Engineering and an advanced design course involving space and aircrafts. Additionally, Professor Kabama co-authored two control textbooks, contributed to over 100 journal papers on control theory, and was made a Fellow of IEEE in 1996. He was also a widely-respected educator, having been awarded the Aerospace Engineering Department Teaching Award (1994) and the Silver Shaft Award for Undergraduate Teaching (2002).
In 2014, Kabamba passed away from lung cancer. A few years after his death, in 2018, the Professor Pierre T. Kabamba Award was established in his honor to recognize senior graduate student’s excellence in aerospace engineering or control systems.