m e m o r i a l s e rv i c e p r o g r a m
Welcome
Salvatore Sutera
Dean, School of Engineering & Applied Science
Remarks
Mark Wrighton
Chancellor
William Danforth
Chancellor Emeritus
James McKelvey
Dean Emeritus, School of Engineering & Applied
Science
William Peck
Former Dean, School of Medicine
Music Selection
“Che gelida manina”
Grace Yin
Arthur Krener
Naval Postgraduate School and
University of California, Davis
Kathleen Byrnes
Daughter of Christopher Byrnes
In memory of
CHRISTOPHER I. BYRNES
1949–2010
3 pm
March 26, 2010
Graham Chapel
Washington University in St. Louis
Following the service, you are invited to join us for a
reception in Whitaker Hall. Shuttle services will be
provided. Please board shuttles outside the entrance of
Edison Theater.
Chris Byrnes, former dean of engineering, dies at 60
2/15/2010
Christopher I. Byrnes, Ph.D., dean of the School of
Engineering & Applied Science at Washington
University in St. Louis from 1991 to 2006 and the
Edward H. and Florence G. Skinner Professor
Emeritus of Systems Science and Mathematics,
died unexpectedly last week in Stockholm, Sweden.
He was 60.
Byrnes, a resident of Ballwin, Mo., was a distinguished
visiting professor in optimization and systems theory at the
Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm at the time of his
death.
"I was very saddened to learn of the passing of Christopher
Byrnes,” said Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. “He was a noted
scholar, research collaborator, and academic leader, and he
will be missed by many people whose lives he touched."
Salvatore P. Sutera, Ph.D., the current interim dean,
Byrnes joined the WUSTL faculty in 1989 as professor of
systems and control and chair of the Department of Systems
Science and Mathematics. He became the eighth dean of the
School of Engineering & Applied Science on July 15, 1991,
succeeding James M. McKelvey, Ph.D. He once described
the deanship as “the best job in St. Louis.”
remembers how exciting it was to participate in this
Under Byrnes’ leadership, the school’s endowment increased
from $54 million to $185 million. Endowed professorships
increased from nine to 37.
Chris as chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering
Two convictions guided him as dean: “The world is becoming
more technologically advanced, not less and the world is
becoming more global, not less.” With those doctrines in
mind, he initiated a strategic planning process for the school
to position it for a leadership position in the changing
environment.
Recognizing the role the transistor and understanding of
DNA would play in the future, the school chose four areas of
emphasis: computers and communication; biomedical
engineering; environmental engineering; and materials
science and engineering.
fundamental shift in the engineering curriculum. “Shortly after
Chris became dean in 1991, he began leading the school’s
faculty through intensive planning for the 21st century
(Project 21). At that time I was well along in my conversion to
biomedical engineering. “ (Sutera, who had served under
and founding chair of the Department of Biomedical
Engineering is now a senior professor of biomedical
engineering.) “The designs of a new department and an
interschool graduate program emerged and, in 1996, we
founded the new Department of Biomedical Engineering, an
approved BS curriculum, and the Institute of Biological and
Medical Engineering. It was an exciting experience and, one
that benefited the school tremendously.“
Byrnes' field of scholarship was systems science and control.
Among his research interests were feedback design in
automatic control, nonlinear dynamics and control, and
statistical estimation and filtering. His research found
application in electrical power systems, signal processing
and speech synthesis, among other areas. He held four U.S.
patents and received more than $5 million in competitively
awarded grants.
Raised in the Bronx during the ‘50s and ‘60s by a stay-athome mom and city-bus-driver dad, Byrnes earned a
bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Manhattan College in
1971.
He saw his first computer as a freshman at Manhattan
College. “It was as big as a house, and I wanted to see how it
worked,“ he once said. While still an undergraduate, he
worked briefly as an economic forecaster for the United
Nations, troubleshooting lines of computer code. He turned
down the offer of a permanent position, however, to continue
his education.
Byrnes earned a master’s degree and a doctorate, also in
mathematics, from the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst in 1973 and 1975, respectively. He began his
academic career as an instructor of mathematics at the
University of Utah in 1975.
Byrnes joined the Harvard University faculty in 1978 as an
assistant professor and was promoted in 1983 to associate
professor. He also taught at Arizona State University, where
he founded the Center for Systems Engineering Research. At
various times, he held visiting appointments at institutions in
Europe, Japan and the former Soviet Union, as well as in the
United States.
Byrnes was awarded an honorary doctor of technology
degree by Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology in 1998.
He was an adjunct professor at the institute from 1986 to
1990 and a visiting professor in 1985, 1991, and 2001. In
2001, Byrnes was installed as a foreign member of the Royal
Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
A fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Byrnes won many best-paper awards, including
the George Axelby Prize, which he received twice, and an
award from the International Federation for Automatic
Control.
In 2005 he received the W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize for
excellence in the field of differential equations and control
theory, and in 2008 he won the IEEE Hendrik W. Bode
Lecture Prize for fundamental contributions to algebraic and
geometric approaches to systems and control. He was the
author or editor of several hundred technical articles and
books.
Byrnes served on many civic, corporate and professional
boards and worked to develop incubators and technology
alliances in the St. Louis area. He chaired both the Center for
Emerging Technologies, a nationally recognized nonprofit
incubator for start up companies, and the Gateway
Technology Alliance, an alliance of more than 250 biotech
and information technology companies. He once said of St.
Louis, “There is no reason St. Louis can’t be as well known
for our technology as Singapore,” since the city and the
nation have comparable populations.
While he was dean, 17 companies were formed to
commercialize the ideas of the faculty and staff of the School
of Engineering & Applied Science.
Byrnes is survived by his wife Renee; his daughters
Kathleen, now studying medicine at Tulane University in New
Orleans, La.; and Alison, a student at Duke University in
Durham, N.C.; and a son, Christopher, Jr., who attends
Chaminade High School in St. Louis.
“Chris made me laugh every single day,” Renee said."He
was the most wonderful conversationalist I’ve ever known,
and he could talk to anyone at any level. I feel very honored
to have been part of his life even for the short time we had.”
Arrangements for a memorial service are pending.
Opening Remarks: Sal Sutera
Good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us for this
memorial program devoted to the memory of Christopher I.
Byrnes. Chris was a former colleague, department chair and
dean; a distinguished and internationally renowned scholar;
a husband, father, and friend to many of us. Since the news
of Chris’ untimely passing reached us from Stockholm late
on the afternoon of February 19, we all have had our own
private reflections about Chris Byrnes and our personal
relationships with him. This afternoon we will hear
remembrances from a few special people associated with
Washington University, others delivered by a representative
from the scientific world in which Chris made an indelible
impression, and, finally, from Chris’ daughter, Kathleen.
The order of presentations will be as shown on the back page
of the program.
Remarks: Mark Wrighton, Chancellor
Chris Byrnes is an individual I’ve known since my arrival
here at Washington University. To his family and to the
friends gathered here we share in an important lost. Chris’s
tenure as a leader at Washington University was impressive
and an important era not only to the school but to the
University and Chris contributed significantly in many
visions.
My first impressions of Chris were that he was an
extraordinarily and intellectually able person, creative. I
learned later that he was not only intellectually able in
dealing with those interested in Science and Engineering but
he was also a very effective communicator, a person who
can make the case for advances in Math and Science
Engineering and was equally knowledgeable and well read
about the role that science and technology plays in our
society. Chris brought great skill and ability to his
leadership role and I knew that in our early days he had set a
very ambitious agenda for engineering and applied science
and he set out to achieve a great deal of that agenda and he
was successful in a significant measure. It was he who
pressed upon us the importance of developing the
Department of Biomedical Engineering. Biomedical
Engineering has thrived at Washington University. Chris’s
vision was one of strength for the school but also a vision
that included building a greater relationship with the school
of medicine and that materialized. Much of Chris’s vision in
this regard has been, in fact, realized. He worked tirelessly
to develop the sources and he worked creatively to literally
build for Biomedical Engineering. At the conclusion of this
program today we will gather to interact socially in Whitaker
Hall for Biomedical Engineering. This was one of Chris’s
prize achievements and it has proved to be an extraordinarily
important physical resource for the school, but Chris was not
only about building physical entities, he knew the
importance of recruiting to Washington University very
talented people and he succeeded enormously well in that
regard also. But as a dean he also understood the importance
of building a resource base that would contribute to the
ability to recruit those people and support them. Among the
important recruitments was, of course, the appointment of
Dr. Frank Yen who contributed significantly to leadership
that has led to the development of now the strongest
programs in Biomedical Engineering.
But beyond Biomedical Engineering, Chris’s contributions
have been enormous through the school. As the program
notes he was associated with developing resources that led to
the endowment of 37 professorships in the school, building
the number from 9 to 37. That’s a remarkable achievement
when you reflect on the fact that the school has
approximately 80 faculty members. This is a very important
contribution to the school but in my tenure as chancellor,
and Chris’s tenure as dean, I found that he was not only
advocating for the school but I learned that his extensive
travels afforded him the opportunity as well to contribute to
the advancement of the entire University and I’ve heard
frequently upon his return from his trips of the important and
positive contribution that he had made helping people
understand the University as a whole. During his leadership
term the School of Engineering was able to attract some of
the most outstanding students as undergraduates and as
graduate students. I am especially pleased that Kathleen is
speaking this afternoon. She and her husband are both
alums of the University and it’s great to have her as a
member of the Washington University family.
Chris was a really outstanding and invigorating leader of the
school. I recall early on as we decided to embark upon our
initiative to build ties in Asia that Chris was one of the most
important contributors to our success there. He himself was
a very well-experienced international traveler, had spent
considerable time in Japan, and was a key participant in our
several university trips to build ties with universities,
governments, and businesses in Asia and to reach out to our
alumni. He was an exceptional contributor to the
development of our international relationships both in
Europe and in Asia in the Middle East. Chris clearly made
an important difference in the life of this institution and
touched the lives of large numbers of outstanding students
and faculty who come to Washington University to study
and to do research.
To Kathleen, Allison, and Christopher you’ve lost an
irreplaceable person. All of us who lose our parents know
that’s a very difficult transition. We keep them alive in our
hearts and minds with wonderful memories. To Kathy we
mourn Chris’s loss and to Renee we thank you for sharing
Chris with us these last years and for letting us have this
memorial service in Chris’s honor. Chris died far too early
at age 60, early in the next phase of his life and career. He
will be deeply missed and the potential for his contributions
will be missed as well.
Remarks: William Danforth
It is an honor to speak at this service in memory of Dean and
Professor Christopher I. Byrnes. I thank his family for
sharing this service with us at Washington University. I
appreciate that and offer my sympathy on the loss of your
beloved father and husband. The chancellor has eloquently
described Chris’s contributions to Washington University.
His scientific and mathematical achievements are beyond
my ability to understand much less discuss. So my remarks
will be personal.
Chris joined Washington University in 1989 as a very bright,
imaginative and accomplished chair of the Department of
Systems Science and Control in the School of Engineering
and Applied Science. Just two years later, while Chris was
still new, Jim McKelvey, our great dean of Engineering,
retired after deaning for over a quarter of a century. I
wondered how we would carry on. Jim had been a
transformative dean. He had brought his school into the then
modern world. Not only that – He had also pushed and
coaxed Washington University to update its traditional ways
of recruiting students, providing scholarships and raising
money. We would miss his wisdom and leadership. We
needed a first rate search committee, both broad and wise.
Each person, carefully picked, brought something special.
For example, Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical
Garden, brought breadth and vast experience. Jerry Cox
provided his usual wisdom and judgment.
We searched the nation and were fortunate to find Chris
Byrnes, already on our faculty. Thus began my quick
immersion in the fun and exciting task of getting to know
Chris. He was very bright. His mind was lightening fast.
And he had a wonderful imagination. His vision was broad
and deep and his insights always on the mark. David Jones
has emphasized Chris’ wonderful way of including people,
asking for ideas and input, making each person an important
and contributing part of the group. It was exciting to watch
his seemingly effortless way of bringing separate ideas
together into a coherent whole. He would then lay out the
big picture and explain the proper order of the various parts,
highlighting what was most important, evolving a plan.
Watching such a performance was for me an aesthetic
experience. I’d say to myself, “He’s got it. He’s exactly
right. He really understands.”
On top of that Chris was fun. He entered into intellectual
challenge with the enthusiasm of a bright college student. He
brought a sense of fun and enjoyment to other aspects of life
as well.
Chris was cosmopolitan thru and thru. I remember an
especially good time in Hong Kong. His curiosity egged on
my curiosity. He loved exploration and new things. He was a
most engaging and imaginative companion, who knew his
way around. He showed me a great place to get a tailored
suit. The suit was a bargain, even if it didn’t fit.
There is another side of Chris with which I resonated. As he
could fit separate parts into a larger context, so he could fit
our present experiences into history. He saw engineering as
a continuum stretching back to its roots in 5th century BC
Greece. He saw himself and his profession as parts of a great
human tradition of striving to better understand our natural
world and using that understanding to improve our lives.
I like to think of Chris’s life in the same way. He stood in
the great human tradition of learning, of remembering what
others have handed us, of adding to the sum of human
knowledge and wisdom and of teaching. The latter, teaching,
is of course, passing on by precept and example to coming
generations the traditions of learning so that those younger
folk can, in their time, pass on ever expanding knowledge
and, we hope, wisdom. Chris wanted that for his students
and his children. He furthered the great traditions of
learning, and exemplified the exploratory zeal that keeps the
traditions going.
Chris’s life had substance and meaning. He brought much to
us, his friends and colleagues;
he enriched his university. And he brought us vision and fun.
His life remains our blessing.
Remarks: James McKelvey
In 1988, the School of Engineering was seeking a chairman
for its Systems Science Department. The retiring chairman
was a giant in the field of System Science, not only
intellectually but was incredibly gifted in recruiting faculty
and in finding funding for research. I was convinced that
finding a suitable replacement would be an extremely
difficult job.
The retiring chairman gave me the DV of Chris Byrnes, at
that time a professor at the Airzona State University. It was
immediately apparent that Chris had a truly impressive
record of scientific accomplishments. But did he have the
other qualities of leadership that th systems science group
would need? I invited Chris to St. Louis. After spending an
afternoon and a long dinner hour at an Italian restaurant (his
favorite ethnic food), I was convinced that he had the
leadership qualities we needed, a conviction shared with the
systems science faculty, and in 1989 Chris became professor
and chairman of the Systems Science & Mathematics
department.
Chris quickly became an important member of the
engineering faculty. His good-natured advice and influence
was felt throughout the School. Two years later, as my
retirement as dean approached, Chris was asked to be a
member of the dean search committee. The committee after
a year had looked at many highly qualified individuals, but
somehow they had not found just the right one. At that point
Chris asked me if I thought he had the qualities needed for
this position. I told him I was sure that he did as did others
that Chris spoke to. He resigned from the search committee
and asked to be considered a candidate. In due course the
committee recommended to Chancellor Danforth that he be
appointed dean. He became the 8th dean of the School in
1991.
Remarks: Arthur Krener, Naval Postgraduae School
Chris Byrnes was my friend, my very close friend and I miss
him greatly. I’m sure most of this audience would say the
same. And there are many other people throughout the
world who would say the same. I wish he were at this
podium right now because he would be here and he would
give a much more interesting and funnier talk than I will.
I first met Chris in the mid seventies at a scientific
conference and we bonded immediately. We had a lot in
common, two Irish Catholic working class kids from New
York City interested in the mathematical theory of control.
But there was vast difference, he was from the Bronx, the
home of the Yankees, and I was from Brooklyn, the former
home of the Dodgers. By then neither of us were baseball
fans so it was not a problem.
Chris was a remarkable man on many levels, a brilliant
mathematician, a remarkable organizer, a funny raconteur
and a loving father. I can remember many wonderful meals
shared with Chris, Cathy, Kathleen, Allison and Christopher
in a variety of cities. He was very proud of his family and
their accomplishments.
He was the last student of the eminent American
mathematician Marshal Stone. When he received his PhD in
1975 the academic job market was in a deep recession.
American colleges had hired many PhDs in the sixties to
meet the needs of educating the baby boomers.
These faculty were still around in the seventies while the
college population was shrinking. Many new PhDs wound
up driving cabs. It sounds more than a little like today.
But you can’t keep a talented person down and Chris was
extremely talented. He found an instructorship at Utah and
quickly went about building his reputation in systems theory,
a field in which he had no prior training. Chris always was a
very quick study; he easily mastered new areas of
mathematics with a deep intuition that allowed him to
contribute almost immediately. His brilliance was quickly
recognized and he was appointed Assistant Professor at
Harvard where he spent several years. Chris always found
it ironic that he was teaching at a university that probably
would not have accepted him as a student.
Arizona State University wanted to build a group in systems
theory and they made Chris an offer that was too good to
refuse. He quickly recruited several excellent faculty and
demonstrated another of his talents, the ability to organize,
lead and to inspire others.
Washington University has always had an international
presence in the field of control and has produced excellent
students through its department of Systems Science and
Mathematics. When it was time for the legendary John
Zaborszky to retire as Chair, Chris was recruited as his
replacement. He served several years as Chair of SSM and
then fifteen years as Dean of School of Engineering and
Applied Science. He made remarkable contributions to the
school establishing the Department of Biomedical
Engineering and numerous endowed chairs.
Chris was an excellent mathematician who continued to do
world-class research even while he was Dean. This is a
very difficult thing to accomplish, as a deanship does not
afford the time for reflection and discovery that mathematics
requires. In recent years his work has been widely
recognized by major awards from the two leading
professional organizations in our field, the Institute of
Electrical and Electronic Engineers Control Systems Society
and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
His organizational skills were put to good use during his
deanship and also in the numerous scientific conferences
that he chaired. Chris chaired or co-chaired the Conference
on Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems three
times, in Stockholm, Phoenix and St. Louis. He co-chaired
the first SIAM Conference on Control and Its Applications
in San Francisco and numerous workshops throughout the
world.
As all of us know, Chris was a wonderful man to be around.
If Chris was in the room so was laughter. In the hope of
evoking Chris I would like to tell a story that he liked to tell.
Chris’ first marriage broke up while he was at Harvard with
some mutual bitterness. By the time he got to Arizona State
he had lost the ponytail that he had at Harvard and when he
was here he was more into suits and ties. So it came as some
surprise to him that he was subjected to more rigorous
searches at the airports when he returned home to
Washington University from abroad. The searches were so
intrusive that Chris asked his friend Senator Danforth to look
into it. Danforth reported back that Chris had been put on
some US Customs special watch list. It is probably a
coincidence that Chris’s ex wife was working for the
customs at that time.
Although we all mourn Chris, I suggest that we all take a
moment to be thankful that we had him as friend and
colleague. He ended on a high note. He and Renee were very
happy and he just had a paper accepted by a prestigious
journal. Let us rejoice in his accomplishments. We shall
not see his like soon again.
Remarks: Kathleen Byrnes, Daughter
Thank you everyone for coming to this memorial service; I
know how important the Washington University community
was to my dad. The one thing that stands out the most to me
when I remember my father is how much he loved
mathematics and education. I remember with great fondness
all of the times over family dinners that he would try to
explain a new math problem to us or even quiz us on little
math factoids. Even before walking me down the aisle he
asked me some quick math questions.
It is because of him that I decided to major in engineering as
an undergraduate. It is also because of him that I decided to
further my education and pursue a medical degree. He
instilled in me a life long love of learning, not just in math
and science but also in the humanities especially English
literature. He was a true renaissance man.
My Dad also taught me the importance of having a good
sense of humor. He was always able to lighten up a tense
situation by making a joke or a witty comment. He taught
me never to take life too seriously or you will miss the fun in
living it.
I will miss him dearly, but I am comforted with
remembering how he never once doubted that my siblings or
I would succeed in anything we wanted to do and for that I
will always be grateful.
*********************************************
REMARKS FROM FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES
Remarks: John Baillieul, Boston University, former
President of IEEE Control Systems Society
I last spoke with Chris Byrnes on December 18 of 2009 in
the bar atop the Pudong Shangri La in Shanghai. We talked
and reminisced a bit, and it brought back memories of old
times when we had so often been together in places all over
the world and sat and chatted about matters that were
important and sometimes not-so-important. As others will
I'm sure point out, Chris was a generous collaborator whose
passion and brilliance in tackling hard mathematical
problems made life exciting for those of us who were
honored to call him a friend. The work we did together on
the mathematical foundations of electric power grids was
guided by Chris's deep insight into the differential topology
of the models. Chris's combination of personal warmth and
technical brilliance propelled him to great heights in a
multifaceted academic career. I miss him very much.
Remarks: Tony Bloch, University of Michigan, former
student of Roger and Chris.
I have wonderful memories of Chris going to back to my
earliest student days with him at Harvard. Chris was full of
energy -- I remember the light in his office at Pierce Hall
burning well beyond midnight --and so exciting to talk to.
He was full of ideas and seemed to have at his command
every theorem in advanced mathematics, so much so that he
could produce a detailed proof of any theorem at a moment's
notice. There were also so many fun moments with him -watching basketball with Dave Gilliam at his apartment,
walking the wintry streets of Stockholm, having a great
dinner at the Stallmeister restaurant. Chris was a vital force
and I shall miss him.
Remarks: Roger Brockett, Harvard University and the
National Academy of Engieers.
I deeply regret that I cannot be here in person today to hear
from others and offer my own reflections on Chris Byrnes.
We were close colleagues and collaborators, especially
during the years he spent at Harvard, and our time together
has left a deep mark on my life. In topics ranging from
mathematics and engineering to travel and cooking, Chris
was fearless in attacking new topics. He was always
generous with ideas and eager to share what he knew with
anyone, regardless of their background or lack thereof.
Characteristic of the best teachers, he had a powerful mind,
an astonishing memory and an innate sense of what other
people were thinking. He possessed enough ambition to
reach high posts in academic life and enough humility to
maintain lifelong friendships. While his personal life was, by
spells, both very happy and decidedly less so, and I have
been witness to both, he always had the strength to bounce
back from temporary reversals and go on to greater things.
Perhaps it is appropriate to end this tribute with a story from
the late 1970s. My wife and I were having a party one night
and our then four year old child was opening the door for
guests; Chris arrived and was greeted with a spontaneous,
“Come on in Chris, it wouldn’t be a party without you!” And
so, our parties and the rest of our lives will definitely not be
the same.
Remarks: Alberto Isidori, University of Rome, formerly
at Washington University, President of the International
Federation for Automatic Control
I first met Chris at a Conference organized by Rudy Kalman
in 1977. At that time, our research interests were quite apart.
I met him again in 1979, at a Conference he had coorganized at Harvard University, and then subsequently at a
Conference that I had co-organized in Rome in 1981. At that
time our research interests begun to converge and eventually
I invited him for a sabbatical at the University of Rome, in
spring 1983. This visit marked the beginning of a mutually
rewarding and long-lasting scientific collaboration. One day
in 1988, walking on the shores of a beach in southern
France, when we both were attending the bi-annual Control
Conference organized by INRIA, Chris explained to me that
the most appropriate mathematical tool for the solution of
the problem of shaping the steady state response of nonlinear
systems was the so-called Center Manifold Theorem. This
was an intuition full of consequences. In fact, center
manifold theory proved instrumental in deriving necessary
conditions for the existence of a “local” regulator. These
eventually became known as the “nonlinear regulator
equations” and nicknamed as FBI equations, after Francis,
Byrnes and Isidori.
When he become Dean of Engineering at Washington
University, our scientific collaboration continued, but at an
obviously lesser level. However, he was always a source of
ideas and intuitions. For instance, in the early 2000’s, it was
again Chris’ intuition the prime mover behind a series of
papers which use some advanced concepts from the theory
of dynamical system, such as the concept of limit set of a
set, to the purpose of proving a general, non local, nonequilibrium based, approach to the design of regulators.
His enthusiasm, passion and sense of humor were constantly
the right catalyst in a series of unforgettable scientific
adventures. In the words of his last student, he was “a great
scholar, a gracious host, and a fine man”. He has been part
of my personal life for many years, scientifically and
socially. Last December, when I saw him last time in
Shanghai at our annual IEEE Control Conference, we
planned a number of joint activities for this coming spring,
which included the preparation of new joint paper. I miss
him enormously.
Remarks: Alexander B. Kurzhanski, UC-Berkeley and
Moscow State University, Member of the Russian
Academy of Sciences.
1. I have first met Chris in Stockholm, in March 1985. In
those days Anders Lindquist invited me to the Royal
Institute of Technology after we had met at a large
conference in Kiev in September 1984. Anders arranged for
me to stay in a university hostel where there was no
breakfast available. He sent me to have breakfast “with a
good American professor and his wife” who were staying at
the same place. The professor was Chris. So we first met in
his rooms at a breakfast with Chester cheese. During the
next few days there were seminar presentations and
discussions with Chris and Anders. That’s how I learned
about Chris' background and research.
2. What impressed me in Chris' background is that he
moved to control theory from topology, having been tutored
by best specialists in that area. The interesting point is that
L.S.Pontryagin and his associates V.G.Boltyanski,
R.V.Gamkreidze and E.F.Mischenko - the pioneers in
mathematics of control -- had also moved to control theory
from topology, where, in the early fifties, Pontryagin had
been an internationally well recognized figure.
3. Chris and Anders also told me about the existence of
MTNS conference and invited me again to Stockholm,
where in June 1985 there was the MTNS Meeting. Here I
saw the MTNS community in its full glory and became
acquainted in person with many researchers whose names I
knew from literature. Chris also introduced me to his closest
colleagues: Art Krener, Clyde Martin and T.J. Tarn . I then
cooperated with all five of them for many years later.
4. At that time I had started to work at IIASA (International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) as Chairman of the
Systems and Decision Sciences Program, so during my
March visit to KTH I invited Chris and Anders to come there
in summer. But Chris with his bustling energy and
friendliness not only came, but organized an IIASA
Workshop on Adaptive Control, a very productive EastWest meeting, attended, apart from those mentioned above,
also by Alberto Isidori, George Leitmann, Steve Morse,
Pravin Varaiya, Mark A.Krasnoselski, Vladimir S.Pugachev
and other control celebrities.
5. Our acquaintance led to our good friendship and
cooperation. We met at many places –several times at
IIASA, at Washington University in St. Louis during my
visits there, and at MTNS –1995 organized by Chris and his
colleagues. In 1989 we met at the IFAC NOLCOS
Symposium, in Capri, where in our spare time, we took a
boat to the Blue Grotto and listened to “O Sola Mio”
beautifully sung by one of the boatmen. A year later Chris,
Clyde and TJ were in Russia at famous Lake Baikal in
Siberia, then in Moscow where we visited the Kremlin and
Red Square.
6. In the late nineties there was an accident with my
younger son when he was on vacation in USA. After that he
and his mother, my wife Natasha, and partly myself, moved
to USA. During this difficult period Chris organized a
medical consultation for my son by a famous American
specialist at the Medical Center of Washington University.
This was very useful and helpful, but not very easy to
organize. All our family is VERY grateful to him.
7. Chris' outstanding contributions to nonlinear control are
widely appreciated everywhere and are well known in
Russia. He was always supportive of Russian-American
cooperation in our research area and did a lot to have joint
meetings of different levels The Russian control-theoretic
research community mourns together with their American
colleagues his premature departure.
8. I last saw Chris in September 2009 during the ByrnesLindquist Workshop at KTH. There we also discussed a
possible Workshop in Russia within the closest years for
which he was preparing, as he said, a list of potential
American participants. Hope this will come true in memory
of Chris.
Remarks: Anders Lindquist, Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm, Member of the Swedish
Academy of Sciences
The first time I heard of Chris Byrnes was at a visit to MIT
in 1978. Professor Sanjoy Mitter told me that there was a
new and very talented Assistant Professor at Harvard whom
I just had to meet. We could not find him at that time, but I
met him shortly thereafter at a conference, and we
immediately struck a common cord. I invited him to the
University of Kentucky, where I was then a professor, and
this resulted in our first paper. This was the beginning of a
long collaboration, to which Chris brought deep
mathematical insight and a plethora of advanced
mathematical tools -- but most of all the beginning of a long
and deep friendship.
In 1985 Chris spent the spring semester at the Royal Institute
of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, to where I had moved
two year earlier. Together we co-chaired the 1985
International Symposium on the Mathematical Theory of
Networks and Systems (MTNS 85), which became a big
success, in large part due to Chris.
During the last thirty years Chris and I have co-authored
some 30 papers and co-edited four books. This collaboration
was extremely stimulating. Chris was an enthusiastic and
generous co-worker, and he had a quicker mind than anyone
else I know. He also had an almost encyclopedic knowledge
of large portions of mathematics, and working with him was
major learning experience. On top of that he had a great
sense of humor.
When he died in Stockholm, he was just in his first year of a
three-year appointment at KTH as a Distinguished Visiting
Professor under the Strategic International Recruiting
program of the Swedish Foundation of Strategic Research.
He had big and enthusiastic future plans on how he would
contribute the intellectual climate at KTH. Just before he
died he submitted the final revised version of a invited
survey for the Notices of the American Mathematical
Society on topological methods for nonlinear oscillations,
which to his delight was very highly praised by the referees
and the editor. Chris is very much missed by people at KTH
where he was admired for the power of his mind and his
spirit of generosity.
Remarks: Steve Morse, Yale University and National
Academy of Engineers.
It is times like this that one thinks about all the good times
one has had with someone who is no longer with us. And
I’ve certainly had lots of good times with Chris Byrnes. I
can’t remember exactly when I met Chris - but I certainly
can remember the ponytail and the very bright young
mathematician who was so very anxious to learn everything
there was to know about control systems. Well he certainly
learned a lot.
Over the years Chris worked on a very impressive wide
range of topic with a huge number of different people
Including even me. His legacy will not be forgotten: zero
dynamics, feedback stabilization, output regulation
and the FBI equation with Alberto Isidori; bringing center
manifolds to control theory; pacification of nonlinear
systems with Alberto Isidori and Jan Willems; adaptive
stabilization with Jan Willems, and more recent work on
stochastic realization with Anders Lindquist - to name just a
few pieces of his high impact work which come to mind.
And then there is the other side of Chris – the king of the
one liner. He always use to say ”My Moma told
me .... just before making some wise crack which always
made its point. I think Chris was the originator of the idea
of the LVP Award - I’ll let Art Krener explain this.
I think the times I really got to know Chris best were when
the two of us spent some quality time traveling together. The
first trip I can remember was in the early 1980s when we
bused across the Sinai desert with the Roger Brockett family
to Cairo and then on just with Chris on to Luxor; I really got
to know Chris on that trip - I even learned that he wore the
same size shorts as me: he must have because he was
wearing a pair of mine that I had loaned him to deal with the
115 degree F heat.
Art Krener can tell you about a memorable trip by train from
a workshop in Bielefeld, Germany to Rome another
workshop in Rome. It was during this trip that I learned of
the true richness of Chris’ vocabulary.
And speaking of trips, who could forget our trip to Sorpron,
Hungry via Warsaw. It was during a long layover at Warsaw
airport that I first learned how able Chris was to get by with
less. To kill time during the layover, Chris somehow
managed to find a deck of cards and promptly started to deal
out poker hands to the group of us. I recall we started betting
zloty which of course we didn’t have but Chris suggested
that we make believe which we did. I had a great hand and
bet a lot of zloty, but so did everyone else. When we showed
our cards to my great amazement it was clear that my four
aces were tied with Chris’ four aces....you see it was a
pinochle deck!
I spent quality time with Chris at many other places all over
the world including a quite memorable dinner with others
including Anders Lindquist at Sabatini’s in Rome on his
birthday, at least a million AFOSR contractors meetings at
WPAFB and elsewhere, at his favorite Italian hangout;
Pensione Manfredi on 61 via Marguta in Roma, in
Stockholm, on a long weekend looking at underwater
Roman ruins at Anzio with Alberto Isidori, on Capri, in
Tokyo looking for presents for his children, in his apartment
in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Bostwick Wyman and
others drinking cappuccino proudly prepared by Chris with
his Pavoni machine. I’m sure that if I think harder I will
remember more quality times with Chris. What I am
absolutely certain of is that I will miss him greatly as will
the entire control systems community.
Remarks: James Ramsey
Dr. Chris I. Byrnes was not just my research and dissertation
advisor, he was also my friend. He has been transformed
from mortality to immortality through his copious indelible
marks of distinction--many of which are now imprinted on
the pages of my heart and mind. In addition to being a
brilliant mathematician and a world-renowned control
systems expert, Dr. Chris Byrnes was a magnificent life
problem-solver. His knowledge extended far beyond the
realm of academia. He was able to see the big picture as
well as the fine granularities from which it was composed. I
will always remember his impressive scholarly recherché
sound bytes that carried with them an infinite wow-factor. I
believe that certain individuals are destined to positively
influence, redirect, and shape the paths of many. Chris
Byrnes was one such individual, and I am one of the
countless many.
Always optimistic, Chris could spin a negative experience
into a teachable moment. In times of doubt, he could
spontaneously manufacture reassurance and confidence even
in a vacuum filled with hopelessness. Among his various
gifts and talents, humor was one of his most valuable assets.
I recall asking him how I should organize the final
presentation for my dissertation defense. Chris Byrnes
instructed me as follows: “James, your presentation should
be organized such that the first ten minutes include material
that everyone in the room should be able to understand…the
second ten-minute period should contain material that any
undergraduate should be able to comprehend…the third tenminute period, graduate level students should be able to
grasp what you are saying…the fourth ten minute period,
only professors and experts in the field should
comprehend…at the 50-minute mark only you and I should
be able to understand what you are saying…and after that,
not even you should understand what you are saying!” What
an incredible man!
My prayers go out to Chris’ family and friends. I, too, will
miss him tremendously.