Michael Peter Kennedy - Biography#

Professor of Microelectronic Engineering at University College Dublin. He received the BE (Electronics) degree from UCD in 1984, the MS and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987 and 1991, respectively, and the DEng from the National University of Ireland (for published work) in 2010.

He worked as a Design Engineer with Philips Electronics, a Postdoctoral Research Engineer at the Electronics Research Laboratory, UC Berkeley, and as a Visiting Professor at the EPFL, Switzerland. From 1992 to 2000, he was on the faculty of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College Dublin (UCD), where he taught Electronic Circuits and Computer-Aided Circuit Analysis, and directed the undergraduate Electronics laboratory. In 2000, he joined UCC as Professor and Head of the Department of Microelectronic Engineering. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 2003 through 2005 and as UCC’s Vice-President for Research Policy and Support from 2005 to 2011. He has held visiting appointments in England, Hungary, Italy, and Poland. From 2009 to 2010, he was a part-time visiting Professor at the University of Pavia, Italy, where he taught short courses on applications of nonlinear dynamics in electronics. and engaged in research into frequency synthesizers.

He has over 350 research publications (including patents and monographs) in the fields of oscillator design, hysteresis, neural networks, nonlinear dynamics, chaos communication, mixed-signal test, and frequency synthesis. He has worked as a consultant for SMEs and multinationals in the microelectronics industry and is founding Director of Ireland’s Microelectronics Industry Design Association (MIDAS Ireland) and the Microelectronic Circuits Centre Ireland (MCCI).

He was made a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 1998 for contributions to the theory of neural networks and nonlinear dynamics and for leadership in nonlinear circuits research and education. He has received many prestigious awards including Best Paper (International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications), the 88th IEE Kelvin Lecture, IEEE Millenium Medal and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Golden Jubilee Medal, the inaugural Royal Irish Academy (RIA) Parsons Award in Engineering Sciences, and the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Chapter of the Year Award 2010. In 2004, he was elected to membership of the RIA and was made a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland by Presidential Invitation, and a Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering in 2014.

He served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems from 1993 to 1995 and from 1999 to 2004 and served on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications. He is currently on the Editorial Boards of the IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems (JETCAS) and IEICE Nonlinear Theory and its Applications (NOLTA).

From 2005 to 2007, he was President of the European Circuits Society and Vice-President of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (with responsibility for Europe, Africa and the Middle East). He has taught courses on aspects of nonlinear dynamics in England, Hungary, Italy, Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States of America. He was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society during 2012‒13.

He serves as expert reviewer for national and international funding bodies and was Chair of the European Research Council’s PE7 (Systems and Communications) Starter Grants Panel in 2014.

In 2012, he was elected Secretary for International Relations of the RIA. Following restructuring, he took also charge of the RIA’s Policy brief from 2013. He served on the Board of All European Academies (ALLEA) from 2012 through 2014, with responsibility for membership.