Biography

Dr. Alejandro Vargas

General information

• Born in Mexico City, Mexico on March 18th, 1971
• Has lived in  Mexico City almost his whole life, except:
• East Lansing, MI, USA (1981-1982): 7 months during primary school
• Reston, VA, USA (1985-1987): 2 years during high school
• Stuttgart and Ludwisgburg, Germany (2000-2002): 2 year doctoral stay
• Married to Blanca Gamboa for almost 6 years!
• Two wonderful daughters: Ana Sofia (3) and Sara Emilia (1)

Education

• Bachelor (licenciatura) in Electrical Engineering (1989-1995) at Facultad de Ingenieria, UNAM in Mexico City
• Master in Electrical Engineering (1996-1999) at the Postgraduate Division of the Engineering School (DEPFI),UNAM
• Master's thesis: Time-optimal control of an aerobic bioreactor using nonlinear observers (in Spanish) -> abstract
• Doctorate in Engineering (1999-2002) also at the National University of Mexico (UNAM)
• Most research was done at the Automatic Control Department of the Engineering Institute at UNAM
• Two year stay (2000-2002) at the Institute for System Dynamics and Control (ISR), University of Stuttgart, supported by the  DAAD, Germany and DGEP, UNAM, Mexico
• Thesis: Observer design for nonlinear systems with reduced observability properties
  
• Spanish and English abstracts plus index in Spanish (PDF file)
• A "book" version of the Ph.D. thesis in English (with ISBN number) is under preparation. Expect it soon!

Work experience

• After bachelor graduation worked six months at Kb/TEL in Mexico City doing electronic design engineering for wireless telecommunication (1996)
• During master and doctorate studies, he taught some Control Engineering and Mathematics courses at
• Facultad de Ingenieria, UNAM
• Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores Monterrey, Ciudad de Mexico (ITESM-CCM)
• Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City

Languages

• Spanish: mother tongue
• English: quite proficient
• German: still struggling, but enough to read, talk, and somehow understand the "schwäbisch" accent from Stuttgart
• French: can read and understand someone talking slowly enoughtop