Systems, Man & Cybernetics - July 2015 - 60

by Plamen Angelov

Prof. Plamen Angelov
Elected to the SMCS
Board of Governors

methods for data analytics (such as typigraduated in 1989, finishing a fivecality and eccentricity; anomaly detecyear M.Eng. degree in automatic
tion; fault detection and identification;
control systems from the Techniand various applications ranging from
cal University of Sofia, Bulgaria. I
robotics, biomedical, and security and
then earned a Ph.D. degree in optidefense. After earning my Ph.D. degree,
mal control under uncertainties with
I spent ten years as a researcher and
the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in
then moved to lectur1993. I remember that
ing, and I am now a
having a solid cyberfull professor with the
netics background and
School of Computing
frame of mind, I was
and Communications
initia lly somewhat
at Lancaster University,
reluctant to embrace
United Kingdom, where
the fuzzy sets theory,
I am the chair of intelabout which my Ph.D.
ligent systems and lead
advisor suggested I
the data science group.
read. It turns out that
Plamen Angelov.
I am a Fellow of
my affection and interthe IEEE and a senior
est in nontraditional
member of the International Neuapproaches is still driving me, and I
ral Network Society (INNS) and am
did a lot of research in the area now
actively involved in various techniknown as computational intelligence.
cal activities, including chairing the
In fact, I am always questioning the
IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetexisting paradigms and trying to find
ics Society (SMCS) Technical Comalternatives whenever they are not
mittee (TC) on Evolving Intelligent
convincing to me. I think that such a
Systems. I am the main organizer
searching attitude is something that
and cochair of a series of IEEE conyou either have or don't, something
ferences in this area and often chair
that is a must for a proper researcher.
large conferences such as the InterMy broader research interests develnational Joint Conference on Neural
oped, and, for the last decade or so, I
Networks (IJCNN) (2013) and Big
have been very active in developing
Data (2015 and 2016). I have also
new methodologies, methods, and algobeen on the program committees of
rithms for autonomous learning sysvarious conferences (FUZZ-IEEE
tems, knowledge extraction in the form
2014 and IJCNN 2016). I wrote two
of human-intelligible fuzzy rule-based
research monographs, which was a
systems; data density-based objecrewarding experience.
tive (yet not the traditional statistical)
In 2008, I was awarded The Engineer Innovation and Technology
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSMC.2015.2483036
Special Award in The Royal Society
Date of publication: 4 March 2016

IEEE Systems, Man, & Cybernetics Magazine July 2015

of the United Kingdom and, in 2013,
the IEEE and INNS Award for Outstanding Services. In addition, I am
the editor-in-chief of Springer's journal Evolving Systems and an associate editor of two IEEE transactions
(IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics
and IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems-the former is the flagship journal of our Society, and the latter has
an impact factor of 8.7, making it the
top-rated IEEE transactions) as well
as several other journals, including
Applied Soft Computing, Fuzzy Sets
and Systems, and Soft Computing. I
often work with industry and try to
make my research innovations practical and useful. I have five patents (of
which one was granted).
I enjoy life and, when possible, like
to play tennis and football, swim, and
ski. During all these years of moving
between different countries and cities,
I am thankful that my family is behind
me. This is mainly thanks to my wife,
Rositsa, who has the same degree as I.
I have two wonderful children-a son,
Lachezar, who, after earning a firstclass degree in economics, is now a
project analyst with Ernst and Young,
and a daughter, Mariela, who is in a
prestigious grammar school.
I am passionate about the IEEE
and SMCS in particular, since this
Society is synonymous with cutting-edge technology and research.
I am working enthusiastically to
further the Society and its standing internationally and in relation
to other orga n izations such a s
the INNS and International Fuzzy
Systems A ssociation a s well a s
to en ha nce the com mu n ication
between the TCs, Society members,
and the Board of Governors.
I would also like to mention and
thank some of my previous graduate students: Dr. Xiaowei Zhou, who
owns a successful high-tech company
in China; Dr. Javier Andreu, a postdoc researcher in Imperial College;

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