Karl Johan Åström awarded Lund University’s Gold Medal for significant contributions

When Karl Johan Åström was offered a professorship at the Lund Institute of Technology (LTH) in 1965, he was working for the American technology company IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) in California.

“It was Ragnar Woxén, then vice-chancellor of both the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and LTH, who thought I should apply for the post in Lund,” says Karl Johan Åström. He had studied at KTH and written his licentiate thesis there, but did not obtain a doctoral degree.

“Actually, I don’t have a doctoral degree,” says Karl Johan Åström.

Instead, it was the research that Karl Johan Åström had carried out at IBM and the new ideas and methods he brought with him to Lund that carried the most weight. Once in Sweden, he was tasked with developing the field of automatic control – a relatively new area of research at the time.

Automatic control is about controlling technical systems so that they operate as intended, even when conditions change. This might, for example, involve keeping an industrial process stable or enabling a machine to adapt automatically to changes.

LTH, founded in 1961, was still in the process of being established. New programmes were introduced, student numbers grew, and a new building was erected every year in the fields on the outskirts of Lund. When Sweden’s third institute of technology was officially inaugurated in 1965, its first 28 professors were appointed. Karl Johan Åström was one of them.

“The M Building has been my home all these years, but to start with we were at the Mathematics Building before the M Building was completed,” says Karl Johan Åström.

A new approach to research and teaching

Karl Johan Åström introduced a new way of working, in which computers quickly became essential tools for researchers, teaching staff and students. He also began writing textbooks on automatic control.

“Writing textbooks is something that has really been close to my heart,” says Karl Johan Åström.

When he talks about the books, he takes one of the most recent ones off the bookshelf and shows both the English and Chinese editions. 

A wide range of assignments

When asked what has been the most enjoyable over the years – teaching or research – the answer comes quickly:

“It’s been 50-50,” says Karl Johan Åström.

While he was establishing the subject of automatic control at LTH, he also contributed to the development of programmes. Among other things, he was a driving force behind the Master’s programme in Computer Science and held several academic leadership posts.

His research also had a major international impact. Under his leadership, areas such as adaptive control, stochastic automatic control and system identification were developed – fields in which he himself made pioneering contributions.

In its citation for the Gold Medal, Lund University also highlights his ability to combine advanced mathematics with practical applications, thereby forging strong links between the University and industry.

Acclaimed around the world

Karl Johan Åström’s research has been recognised through a long list of Swedish and international awards. In 1993, he was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor, one of the highest honours in engineering, for his fundamental contributions to the theory and applications of adaptive control. In 2002, he was awarded the Great Gold Medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and was elected a foreign associate member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 1995.

Although Karl Johan Åström never obtained a doctoral degree, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by six universities around the world, including KTH, Chalmers and the University of Glasgow. He remembers the conferment ceremony at the latter, in 1998, particularly well. 

At the same ceremony, the actor Sean Connery was also to be awarded an honorary doctorate, something Karl Johan Åström found particularly exciting. Unfortunately, he never got to meet the James Bond actor, who was unable to attend.

The award of Lund University’s Gold Medal to Karl Johan Åström places particular emphasis on his significance to generations of researchers, students and engineers around the world. 

“It’s a great honour. And very gratifying!” says Karl Johan Åström.