Coffee and Control

Lucy Hodgins
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Podcast in which I interview fascinating people from within the world of control theory/ control engineering. Primarily aimed at PhD/masters students but can hopefully be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in control. New episodes released monthly

  1. 6h ago

    Francesca Boem (Distributed Monitoring and Attack Detection)

    In this episode I had the pleasure of talking to the fantasticFrancesca Boem about her work on monitoring networked systems, approaches to detecting faults and cyber attacks, as well as her new start-up helping to ensure the security of wireless health-tech devices!   You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ttf7raapfDW4_aj3mnD8mSoy704d9T9BLnJk9QXbLqM/edit?usp=sharing   Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/ Drop me an email if you’re attending IFAC WC: L.Hodgins@soton.ac.uk     References Francesca Boem: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/65682-francesca-boem PhD thesis: https://www.openstarts.units.it/entities/publication/c9e28dd2-a9f3-4deb-bfb9-886a8f5d1661/details Thomas Parisini: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/t.parisini Distributed fault detection paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6580380   Detectability of cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8264562 Cyber attack detection for microgrids: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9054955 Detecting covert cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9104026 Detecting replay attacks: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.00737 Fault-tolerant control/ active fault diagnosis: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8700304   CONTROL 2026 episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MTAxQo4PlTC0zo7OcYRB4   BLE vulnerabilities paper: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212293/1/ISCAS_2025_V4.pdf      GiancarloFerrari Tricate: https://people.epfl.ch/giancarlo.ferraritrecate KIOS centre: https://www.kios.ucy.ac.cy/

    Francesca Boem (Distributed Monitoring and Attack Detection)

  2. Jul 1

    CONTROL 2026 (ACE Network/ UKACC Conference Special)

    In this episode I have the pleasure of attending the CONTROL2026 conference, and bring you along with me! This conference was the largest gatheringof control engineers in the UK recent years, co-organized by the ACE network and UK Automatic Control Council (UKACC). Join me as I explore the ACE network and some of the fabulous control engineering research taking place across theUK! Join the ACE network!: ⁠https://ukcontrol.org/join-ace   You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1131VDAX37W9GOJ87c0PZqXt83VMds1rAdapr1HdgN3Q/edit?usp=sharing   Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/   References Control 2026: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/ Conference proceedings: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Control-2026-Proceedings-Booklet.pdf ACE network: https://ukcontrol.org/ UKACC: https://ukacc.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/ IFAC: https://www.ifac-control.org/ Pramod Khargonekar: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/khargonekar/ Slides from his talk: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/yaf5rk Norbert Weiner: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Norbert-Wiener Automony vs automation: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-020-01004-z InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/11513053-ep6-norbert-wiener-and-cybernetics Macy Conference proceedings: http://cybernetic-bookshelf.org:8083/book/2636Dartmouth conference: https://opendigitalai.org/en/the-dartmouth-conference-1956-the-big-bang-of-ai/ John McCarthy: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-McCarthy Daniel Coca: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/staff/profile/danielcoca.html EPSRC: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/ Interview with Andy Lawrence: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6BvPXw3YyoqdsvbQ573OF1 William Heath: https://www.bangor.ac.uk/staff/scse/william-heath-680178/en Alessandro Astolfi: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.astolfi Antonis Papachristodoulou: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/antonis-papachristodoulou Stephen Duncan: https://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-stephen-duncan/ Francesca Boem: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/f.boem EDI survey: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/ahijky Mentorship scheme sign-up form: https://ukcontrol.org/ace-network-mentor-scheme ACE position paper: https://ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ACE-Position-Paper.pdf Network + survey: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=yRJQnBa2wkSpF2aBT74-hyrBNzE3vqFAgmzn8RVGrRVUM1pNMEZFREExUTBJQ1dRUkJTNFRGNEJPVi4u&route=shorturl   Claude shutdown: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/claude-fable-5-disabled-us-government/ Brian Douglas podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yUF9sf0cM2K9AeoQzoHal   Chao Gu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chao-gu-609073220/ Petri nets: http://www.petri-net.de/ AEGEAN: https://en.about.aegeanair.com/company/fleet/ Liam Hallinan: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LmZyKIIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao Salma Iraky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salmassabry/ TERRA github: https://github.com/sssabry/tera Anton Selivanov: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anton-Selivanov Allan Nascimento (Multi-horizon MPC author): https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/author/867072138905292   Miroslav Krstic: https://flyingv.ucsd.edu/ Neural operators: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.08481 Mohammad Adballah: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/schools/meme/staff/phd/mohammad-abdallah/   Luke Rickard: https://www.lukerickard.co.uk/ Will Rohde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wfmrohde/ Dan Hobson: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xp9hs/mr-daniel-hobson Anthony Rossiter: https://ieeecss.org/contact/anthony-rossiter Control101 toolbox: https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/130439-control-101-toolbox

    CONTROL 2026 (ACE Network/ UKACC Conference Special)

  3. Jun 7

    Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 2 (AI Architectures and the Dynamics of Intelligence)

    In the second part of my interview with the incredibly talented Carmen Amo Alonso we discuss her fascinating work at the intersection of AI and control, examining topics such as: Using tools from control theory to analyse and design AI systems Controlling large language models to guarantee a particular sentiment for their output Using vision-language-action models to control robots using language and a whole lot more!   You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ph1yaQuV_ybRM8h9rU5Uvmz9eB5Ar4HVhcBnc7b7zJ8/edit?usp=sharing Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/   References The architecture of language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApC0AWWTajU Diffusion models: https://the-principles-of-diffusion-models.github.io/ Skip connection paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10609 Review of state-space models in AI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16899 3 Blue 1 Brown video on transformers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZofJX0v4M Dynamical systems framework paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15731 Designing sequence models: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09389v1 Controlling LLM output: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15454v3 Controllability of LLMs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05637v1   Vision-language-action model paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05487v1 NARRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.10762 DEMONSTRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12855v1 Domitilla Del Vecchio: https://meche.mit.edu/people/faculty/ddv@MIT.EDU Biomolecular feedback systems book: https://www.fbswiki.org/wiki/index.php/Biomolecular_Feedback_Systems Mathias Foo episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1G3vhRoeenTWRrEwauT0ne inControl episodes: Mario di Bernardo: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/19167890-ep44-mario-di-bernardo-from-circuits-to-cells-and-swarms-control-meets-complexity Mustafa Khammash: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12648716-ep11-mustafa-khammash-cybergenetics John Doyle: https://ieeecss.org/contact/john-doyle InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12841020-ep12-john-doyle-part-i-a-pioneer-s-guide-to-robust-control-the-past-present-and-future Jerome Sieber: https://jerome.sieber.io/

    Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 2 (AI Architectures and the Dynamics of Intelligence)

  4. Jun 2

    Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 1 (Distributed and Localized Model Predictive Control)

    In this episode I talk to the very wonderful Carmen Amo Alonso about her (award-winning) PhD research on distributed and localised MPC. We also cover super interesting and useful concepts such as system-level synthesis and ADMM, as well as her internship working at Tesla! You can access the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SErvHtKoE18QzelHDUh9im6AeG3zKPWZLRoNGx5BUyg/edit?usp=sharing Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/   References Carmen: https://camoalon.github.io/ JPL: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ John Doyle: https://ieeecss.org/contact/john-doyle Feedback in biological control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9867859 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9867794 Thesis: https://thesis.caltech.edu/15262/3/Carmen_Amo_Alonso_Caltech_PhD_Thesis.pdf Distributed localised MPC paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9939038   Professor Melanie Zeilinger: https://nccr-automation.ch/about/people/melanie-zeilinger-0 SLS for robust nonlinear optimal control: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.04943 Professor Nikolai Matni: https://nikolaimatni.github.io/ System-level synthesis tutorial: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.01634   YouTube videos on DLMPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF2Wbriy2Zg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhtuGZp8QM0&t=302s ADMM survey paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.03700 Professor James Anderson: https://www.columbia.edu/~ja3451/   Data-driven DLMCP: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9772975 Willems fundamental lemma: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/262195/1/PersistencyExcitation.pdf Paolo Rapisarda episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/076dEw28abILPAbT5qA6aw   Implementing DLMP on GPUs: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9831839 Clubes de Ciencia: Mexico: https://clubesdeciencia.mx/ Peru: https://clubesdecienciaperu.org/ Terry Sejnowski: https://biology.ucsd.edu/research/faculty/tsejnowski

    Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 1 (Distributed and Localized Model Predictive Control)

  5. May 1 ·  Bonus

    Journal Clubs (Creating reading groups that people want to be part of)

    In this episode I talk to three lovely researchers all about journal clubs (AKA reading groups) – what they are, why you might want to be part of one, and how to start your own! I also give some insights from my own experiences running a (control-related) journal club, as well as a summary of three of my favourite papers we’ve read.   You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19i4egf_2KEWqkp94ZW3QjRTH8PeAZz6yEix8zoSfx4k/edit?usp=sharing Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/   References Al Edwards: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/62mm7y/doctor-al-edwards Antonia Marcu: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xk5lz/miss-antonia-marcu Convexification for soft landing optimal control paper: http://www.larsblackmore.com/iee_tcst13.pdf Improved soft robotic parameterisation paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8961972 KKL observer synthesis paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11655

    Journal Clubs (Creating reading groups that people want to be part of)

  6. Apr 1

    Brian Douglas (Control Engineering in Industry)

    In this episode I got the opportunity to sit down with the fantastic Brian Douglas and talk about what it's like to be a control engineer in industry, common misconceptions he had, and advice for current students. We also discussed his YouTube channel, as well as a few more technical aspects of projects he's been involved with over the years! You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gAyIAgd3RzVSSDmJ-As0gzJVekJG3IqU2L-1zJhuKYs/edit?usp=sharing Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/   References Brian Douglas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-douglas-505b7175/ Engineering Media (Brian’s company): https://engineeringmedia.com/ Original YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq0imsn84ShAe9PBOFnoIrg MATLAB YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MATLAB Co-design podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3upRUgZBy79tqihMy9BDsJ Veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/@veritasium Smarter every day: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6107grRI4m0o2-emgoDnAA Mark Rober: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRober Formal verification video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kINfn-ZYiLY InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/15223020-ep24-brian-douglas-boeing-control-videos-resourcium-map-of-control-theory-cartoons-mathworks

    Brian Douglas (Control Engineering in Industry)

  7. Mar 1

    Gioele Zardini (Engineering Trade-offs and Co-design)

    In this episode I got to speak with the fantastic Gioele Zardini about his work on the co-design framework, a fascinating framework used to optimise large interconnected systems. We cover the theoretical background of this, intuition behind it, and a ton of different applications where it’s useful, as well as discussing exciting open questions in the field!   Find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XPZr9jP4Lphskkw-SiM8h-x1kp7LROqZ243S6zA7EsY/edit?usp=sharing Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/   References Gioele Zardini: https://zardini.mit.edu/ PhD thesis: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/entities/publication/d7c08dd5-bf96-4c1f-a744-5e751f0f44a5 PhDs in control interview: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10555200 Emilio Frazzoli: https://idsc.ethz.ch/research-frazzoli/people/person-detail.frazzoli.html Andrea Cenci: https://nccr-automation.ch/about/people/andrea-censi Marco Pavone: https://profiles.stanford.edu/marco-pavone NuTonomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuTonomy(current site: https://motional.com/) Brad Nelson: https://msrl.ethz.ch/the-lab/team/Brad_Nelson.html David Sacramuza: https://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/people_scaramuzza.html Yujun Huang: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/yujun-huang/ Uncertainty in co-design paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.02766   Background refs on category theory: David Spivak: https://dspivak.net/Brendan Fong: http://brendanfong.com/ Gioele's work in progress book: https://storage.zuper.ai/sync/ACT4E/ACT4E/alphubel-prod/build/last/build-public/ACT4E-public.pdf YouTube talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmAz6fEPa2o Gioele's course: https://zardini.mit.edu/act4ed/ MIT applied category theory course: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-s097-applied-category-theory-january-iap-2019/ Seven sketches in compositionality: http://brendanfong.com/fong_spivak_an_invitation.pdf   LQG control co-design paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9654960 LQG background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4_hFazBGxUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_RDCFOlJx4 Aaron Ames: http://ames.caltech.edu/ Nikolai Matni: https://nikolaimatni.github.io/ John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyleCDC episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ZUcm3gVHKILDEyDjQtXvx   Braess’s paradox: https://resources.mpi-inf.mpg.de/departments/d1/teaching/ws12/ct/Braess-paradox.pdf   Co-design of mobility-on-demand systems: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04739   Formula One co-design papers: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/entities/publication/bd65f78e-f19a-4469-a379-d4b219893a33https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/JQmudB Co-design of soft robotics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.03761   Cosimo Della Santina inControl episode: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/LPNORz   Games with partially-ordered objectives: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.07099 Mingjia He: https://mingjia-he.github.io/ Paper on hierarchical games: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12059 Game theory episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xrwua7U2HfSW3sxY6BnRU Jeff Shamma inControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18482182-ep40-jeff-shamma-gain-scheduling-nonlinear-control-learning-dissipativity-in-games-jiu-jitsu Vincent Abbott: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/vincent-abbott/ Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli: https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/sangiovanni-vicentelli.html InControl episodes:  https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/14692449-ep21-alberto-sangiovanni-vincentelli-part-i-classics-eda-logic-synthesis-spice-intel-x386-cadence-synopsis-platform-based-design https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/14882529-ep22-alberto-sangiovanni-vincentelli-part-ii-cyberphysical-and-hybrid-systems-contracts-chiplets-models-of-computation-time-innovative-ecosystems-biobricks-neuromorphics John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyle

    Gioele Zardini (Engineering Trade-offs and Co-design)

  8. Feb 1

    Barbara Franci (Game Theory and Resource Allocation)

    In this episode I have a lovely conversation with Dr Barbara Franci about her research into game theory, exploring both theoretical concepts (such as variational inequalities, forwards-backwards algorithms, and stochastic Nash equilibrium-seeking problems) and practical applications, including resource allocation, energy management, and generative adversarial networks!   You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h9AbCPzzlt7ggNOGx3bK3pwSaCUo__LtYzvdJ-5wqYw/edit?usp=sharing   Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/ Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/   References Barbara Franci: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/b-franci PhD thesis: https://tesidottorato.depositolegale.it/bitstream/20.500.14242/198173/1/FRANCI%20Tesi2.pdf More background on evolutionary games: https://users.ssc.wisc.edu/~whs/teaching/805/handbook.pdf Jeff Shamma inConctrol episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18482182-ep40-jeff-shamma-gain-scheduling-nonlinear-control-learning-dissipativity-in-games-jiu-jitsu  Wisdom of a crowd paper: https://epubs.siam.org/doi/abs/10.1137/18M1232267 Francesco Bullo: https://fbullo.github.io/ Original Galton paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/075450a0   Video on the Lagrangian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR4ff0dTLTw Useful lecture notes on these concepts: https://www.mit.edu/~gfarina/notes/   Distributed forwards-backwards paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9309063 Extragradient paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11184508 Relaxed inertial forwards-backwards paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9682905   Professor Lacra Pavel: https://www.ece.utoronto.ca/people/pavel-l/ Deterministic decoupling paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330888828_An_operator_splitting_approach_for_distributed_generalized_Nash_equilibria_computation Pseudo-monotone functions: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225986571_Pseudomonotone_Operators_A_Survey_of_the_Theory_and_Its_Applications Inertial gradient descent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iudXf5n_3ro&t=60s   GANs paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9523601 Original Goodfellow paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661 Partial information paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109821006300 Incorporating a bias: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10886508 Nash games with misleading information: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11008595 Evolutionary dynamics in distributed control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7823106

    Barbara Franci (Game Theory and Resource Allocation)
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About

Podcast in which I interview fascinating people from within the world of control theory/ control engineering. Primarily aimed at PhD/masters students but can hopefully be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in control. New episodes released monthly

Information

  • Creator
    Lucy Hodgins
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Lucy Hodgins
  • Show Website
    Coffee and Control

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