Claire Tomlin of UC Berkeley and Stanford is a new MacArthur fellow for 2006, joining 24 other distinguished scientists and artists from across the country.
Tomlin is an aviation engineer who focuses on developing methods for analyzing hybrid control systems and applying these results to practical problems. Hybrid systems consist of interacting discrete and continuous elements, such as in power plants where there are a series of open or closed valves (discrete) and varying water temperatures or pressures (continuous).