Honorary Professor in Sofia

On 11 December, Professor Ivan Kalaykov of Örebro University, Sweden, was made Honorary Professor of the Technical University in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ivan Kalaykov has been professor of computer science, specialising in automatic control systems, at Örebro since 2004. He worked at the university in Sofia between 1974 and 1997 and has maintained contact ever since.

- I am much honoured by this distinction. It is a recognition of more than 23 years' worth of work at and affiliation with the university in Sofia. There is nothing more valuable than receiving recognition and respect from your own colleagues, says Professor Kalaykov, who was present in Sofia for the award ceremony. In connection with the award, he gave a lecture on robotics.

Every year, Örebro University welcomes four students from the Technical University of Sofia, and they come to do their degree projects here.

Top grades in Sofia

- The students come as part of the Erasmus programme. They develop their projects here and participate in various projects at our school. All degree projects done here receive top grades at their home university which has given Örebro University a good reputation in Sofia, says Professor Kalaykov.

In the last five years, Ivan Kalaykov has, on site in Sofia, given intensive courses on intelligent control systems for students on the Master's and doctoral levels.

Ivan Kalaykov came to Örebro University in 1999 as a researcher and teacher. In 2004, he became professor of computer science specialising in automatic control systems, of which he is now the head.

With a fresh engineering diploma in automatic control systems he began his career as a lecturer at the Technical University of Sofia in 1974. Later on he did a PhD in control theory and continued to work in Sofia as the head of a research and teaching unit in system and control engineering. In 1997, he moved to Tromsø in Norway and stayed there for a few years, before coming to Örebro.

Text: Lars Westberg

Translation: Charlotta Hambre-Knight

Photo: G Kalaykov