Are You Nuts? [President’s Message

Abstract

Many things can be scaled up. Not saying that it is easy, but it is possible to get a bigger lab, more funding, or a larger research group. However, the one thing that never scales is time. No matter what we do, a day never goes beyond 24 hours, which means that how we spend our time is the ultimate statement about what matters to us. As my professional career has included increasingly complex and time-consuming roles (including being the director of a major robotics institute, chair of the largest electrical and computer engineering department in the United States, and most recently, the dean of engineering at the University of California, Irvine), I have been forced to become highly conscious of how I spend my time. Which brings us to the title of my inaugural column as president of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS): “Are You Nuts?” This is a direct quote from one of my colleagues when they learned that I had taken on this role in the middle of all my other professional and equally important personal commitments.