Francesco Casella was born in Cremona, Italy in 1969. He obtained his Laurea (Master of Science) degree cum laude in Electronic Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 1994, with a thesis on the active control of a large flexible structure, and his PhD degree from the same university in 1999, with a dissertation on modelling, simulation, control and optimization of a geothermal power plant. Since 2001 he is Ricercatore (Assistant Professor) at the Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione. From September 2006 to February 2007 he was visiting scholar at the Process & Energy department of TU Delft (The Netherlands). His main research interest is the use of modelling and simulation techniques for computer-aided control system design (CACSD), with particular emphasis on modelling, simulation, and control of power plants and energy systems, and on object-oriented modelling languages; he authored or co- authored more than 60 journal and conference papers at the international level, mainly in this area. He has carried out research activity in cooperation with national and international university departments (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, and Process & Energy Department, TU Delft), as well as companies and research institutes (Project Automation SpA, ENEA, Alstom Power Italia SpA, CESI Ricerca SpA, Westinghouse Electric LLC, EDF, Edison S.p.A.), and has been invited to teach courses on object-oriented modelling of thermo-fluid systems and power plants by ABB AG (Mannheim, Germany) and Imagine SA (Lyon, France). He is also an active member of the Modelica Association, where he is responsible for the development of the Modelica_Fluid library. He has been Programm Chair and local organizer of the 7th International Modelica Conference in Como, 20-22 September 2009. He is currently teaching graduate courses on Automatic Controls and on Modelling and Control of Continuous Processes, and has taught courses on Object-Oriented Modelling for PhD students.