MAFFEZZONI CLAUDIO
In Memoriam
Claudio Maffezzoni (1946 - 2005) .
Claudio Maffezzoni entered the Electronics Department of the Politecnico, in 1970, as a scholarship holder. He had just completed his engineering studies with a work on the stability of oscillations in nonlinear systems. After four years of rather uncomfortable—but unfortunately not unusual—temporary work, he decided to leave the university, without however abandoning scientific research. Indeed, he was hired by ENEL’s Centro Ricerche di Automatica (CRA), where he was able to fully express his talents and his scientific personality. In just a few years there he reached early maturity under the guidance of Giorgio Quazza: a master who left a profound and indelible mark on his way of seeing research, and perhaps also some aspects of life in general. A fairly inconspicuous mark that did not, however, escape the notice of those who had the good fortune to know both quite well. At the Politecnico, Giorgio Quazza held a course in Process Control, which he created with the original and intellectually challenging objective of giving the application side too of Automatica a strictly scientific character.
When Giorgio prematurely lost his life in a tragic alpine accident in 1978, Claudio Maffezzoni took over his difficult legacy as a professor, and took responsibility for the Process Control course. This also bears witness to the unbroken thread that linked him to the Politecnico di Milano and to people in the Department of Electronics, later called the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB). Claudio maintained that responsibility ever since, until the onset and prevalence of the illness that killed him.
After winning a top level academic competition in 1984, Claudio was in fact called to the Politecnico as professor of Process Control. This marked his final return to the university. From Process Control, his attention had in the meantime progressively extended to all the main sides of Automatica's industrial applications; including Automation and Robotics. His commitment to training young people in research, which had already begun at the CRA, became predominant and, with the first students, he embarked on a pathway that involved, as a subsequent goal, the creation of a school, complementary to what already existed in the department and particularly aimed at intensifying relations with the industrial world, both Italian and international.
This school, and precisely the students who embody and represent it in professional life and even more so in university teaching, is undoubtedly a cornerstone of the legacy he left to the Politecnico di Milano. Some prominent features of his teaching are thus remembered by his pupils: "Claudio taught us that nothing helps more to understand the functioning of systems, to discern the essential from the accessory, than to write and analyse a sensible mathematical model"; even in giving a substantially technical instruction, he tended to "train people according to principles that have their cornerstones in intellectual honesty, methodological rigor and balance between theoretical and applicative aspects". His scientific production—varied, of high level and remarkably without redundancy—earned him wide international visibility and prestigious awards. The reverberation of this prestige naturally also affected the university and the department to which he belonged, which he helped to lead, as Vice-Director, from 1993 to 1996.
In addition to the new courses (Industrial Automation, Control Systems Engineering and Technologies, Industrial Robotics, Simulation Techniques and Tools) that were gradually set up on his own initiative or with the decisive support of his patronage, the writer cannot forget the opportunity of proximity and unity of purpose created by the involvement in long-term projects, considered necessary for a balanced development, at the Politecnico di Milano, of teaching and research activities related to automation. With much less visibility than the role he actually played could have entailed, he made it possible to reconstitute at the DEI the Laboratory of Automation dedicated to applied research in this field and, a little later, contributed in an essential way to the success of the long preparatory work that led to the launch, at the Politecnico, of the Course of Studies in Automation Engineering. Above all, the balanced design of the Bachelor's degree course bears the indelible mark of his experience.
Proud of his humble origins, Claudio did not like to refine words: at times, an apparent roughness and instinctive straightforwardness let the reflection of an unsuspected form of hidden shyness. In his professional relationships he was not inclined to use the term friendship. Nevertheless, he attached incalculable value to authentic feelings, above all those concerning family. For this reason, too, he has left a void definitely not bounded to his technical legacy; a painful void difficult to fill.
Claudio Maffezzoni entered the Electronics Department of the Politecnico, in 1970, as a scholarship holder. He had just completed his engineering studies with a work on the stability of oscillations in nonlinear systems. After four years of rather uncomfortable—but unfortunately not unusual—temporary work, he decided to leave the university, without however abandoning scientific research. Indeed, he was hired by ENEL’s Centro Ricerche di Automatica (CRA), where he was able to fully express his talents and his scientific personality. In just a few years there he reached early maturity under the guidance of Giorgio Quazza: a master who left a profound and indelible mark on his way of seeing research, and perhaps also some aspects of life in general. A fairly inconspicuous mark that did not, however, escape the notice of those who had the good fortune to know both quite well. At the Politecnico, Giorgio Quazza held a course in Process Control, which he created with the original and intellectually challenging objective of giving the application side too of Automatica a strictly scientific character.
When Giorgio prematurely lost his life in a tragic alpine accident in 1978, Claudio Maffezzoni took over his difficult legacy as a professor, and took responsibility for the Process Control course. This also bears witness to the unbroken thread that linked him to the Politecnico di Milano and to people in the Department of Electronics, later called the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB). Claudio maintained that responsibility ever since, until the onset and prevalence of the illness that killed him.
After winning a top level academic competition in 1984, Claudio was in fact called to the Politecnico as professor of Process Control. This marked his final return to the university. From Process Control, his attention had in the meantime progressively extended to all the main sides of Automatica's industrial applications; including Automation and Robotics. His commitment to training young people in research, which had already begun at the CRA, became predominant and, with the first students, he embarked on a pathway that involved, as a subsequent goal, the creation of a school, complementary to what already existed in the department and particularly aimed at intensifying relations with the industrial world, both Italian and international.
This school, and precisely the students who embody and represent it in professional life and even more so in university teaching, is undoubtedly a cornerstone of the legacy he left to the Politecnico di Milano. Some prominent features of his teaching are thus remembered by his pupils: "Claudio taught us that nothing helps more to understand the functioning of systems, to discern the essential from the accessory, than to write and analyse a sensible mathematical model"; even in giving a substantially technical instruction, he tended to "train people according to principles that have their cornerstones in intellectual honesty, methodological rigor and balance between theoretical and applicative aspects". His scientific production—varied, of high level and remarkably without redundancy—earned him wide international visibility and prestigious awards. The reverberation of this prestige naturally also affected the university and the department to which he belonged, which he helped to lead, as Vice-Director, from 1993 to 1996.
In addition to the new courses (Industrial Automation, Control Systems Engineering and Technologies, Industrial Robotics, Simulation Techniques and Tools) that were gradually set up on his own initiative or with the decisive support of his patronage, the writer cannot forget the opportunity of proximity and unity of purpose created by the involvement in long-term projects, considered necessary for a balanced development, at the Politecnico di Milano, of teaching and research activities related to automation. With much less visibility than the role he actually played could have entailed, he made it possible to reconstitute at the DEI the Laboratory of Automation dedicated to applied research in this field and, a little later, contributed in an essential way to the success of the long preparatory work that led to the launch, at the Politecnico, of the Course of Studies in Automation Engineering. Above all, the balanced design of the Bachelor's degree course bears the indelible mark of his experience.
Proud of his humble origins, Claudio did not like to refine words: at times, an apparent roughness and instinctive straightforwardness let the reflection of an unsuspected form of hidden shyness. In his professional relationships he was not inclined to use the term friendship. Nevertheless, he attached incalculable value to authentic feelings, above all those concerning family. For this reason, too, he has left a void definitely not bounded to his technical legacy; a painful void difficult to fill.