Maria Elena Valcher  received the Master Degree (cum laude) in Electronic Engineering in July 1991 from the University of Padova (Italy) and the Ph.D. Degree in Systems Engineering in October 1995 from the same university. From November 1994 till October 1998 she was Assistant Professor in the Automatic Control area at the Department of Electronics and Computer Science of the University of Padova. From November 1998 to October 2001 she was Associate Professor of System Theory at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Lecce (Italy).

From November 2001 to December 2004 she was Associate Professor of System Theory at the Engineering Faculty of the University of  Padova.

She is currently Full Professor of Control Theory at the University of Padova.

She is author/co-author of about 60 papers appeared on international journals, about 70 conference papers and some book chapters. Her research interests include multidimensional systems theory, polynomial matrix theory, behavior theory, convolutional coding, fault detection and observer design, delay-differential systems, switched systems and positive systems.

She was a Plenary Speaker at the workshop Positive Systems Theory and Applicatiosn (POSTA) 2009, Valencia (Spagna), September 2-4, 2009,  and SemiPlenary Speaker at the 49th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2010), Atlanta (Georgia), December 15-17, 2010.

She is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Control Systems society for three years (2011-2013).

She has been involved in the Organizing Committees and in the Program Committees of several IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS)-sponsored conferences:

- Program Committee Member of the 38th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Phoenix 1999

- Registration Chair of the 43rd IEEE CDC, Bahamas 2004

- Editor of the Joint 44th IEEE CDC- European Control Conference (ECC), Sevilla (Spain), 2005

- Publicity Chair for Europe of the 1st Multi-Conference on Systems and Control, Singapore 2007

- Program Committee Member of the 46th IEEE CDC, New Orleans 2007

- Editor of the 47th IEEE CDC, Cancun (Mexico), 2008

1. -Editor of the Joint 50th IEEE CDC- ECC, Orlando, Florida, 2011
   

- Program Chair of the 51st IEEE CDC, Maui, Hawaii, 2012

Other conference related activities:

- Organizing Committee Member of the Conference "The Mathematical theory of Networks and Systems" MTNS'98, Padova (Italy), 1998; Program Committee Members of the Conferences "The Mathematical theory of Networks and Systems" MTNS'02, Notre Dame, 2002; MTNS'10, Budapest (Hungary), 2010; MTNS 2012, Sydney (Australia), 2012.

- Program Committee Member of the Workshop on Positive Systems "Posta 2003", Roma (Italy), 2003; "Posta 2006", Grenoble (France), 2006; "Posta 2009", Valencia (Spain), 2009; “Posta 2012”, Maynooth (Ireland), 2012.

- Program Committee Member of the Conference "Safeprocess 2006", Bejing (China), 2006.

- Program Committee Member of the Workshop on Multidimensional Systems "NDS 2007", Aveiro (Portugal), 2007.

- Program Committee Member of the IEEE MMAR 2009 Conference, Miedzyzdroje (Poland), 2009; IEEE MMAR 2010 Conference, Miedzyzdroje (Poland), 2010.

- Program Committee Member of the 18th Ieee Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2010), Marrakeck (Marocco), 2010; (MED 2011), Corfu' (Greece), 2011.

- International Program Committee Member of the 8th European Workshop on Advanced Control and Diagnosis (ACD 2010) Ferrara (Italy), 2010

1. -Registration Chair of the 2011 IFAC World Conference, Milano (Italy), 2011.
   

2. -Vice Program Chair of the International Conference on Control and Systems 2012, Marrakech, Marocco, 2012.
   

3. - Program Committee Member of SIDRA 2011, Pisa, 7-9 September 2011.
   

4. -Organizer of the International Workshop in the Occasion of the 70th Birthday of Giovanni Marchesini "Mathematical Systems Theory: Where Are We?", 2006.
   

She was in the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (Jan. 1999- Dec. 2002), in the Editorial Board of Systems and Control Letters (2004-2010), and she is currently in the Editorial Boards of Automatica (June 2006-), Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing (2004-) and SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization (January 2012-).

She was Outstanding Reviewer of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control in 1999 and 2002, and Outstanding Reviewer of  Automatica for the period July 2001-July 2002.

She has been an active member of the IEEE CSS:

- Appointed Member of the IEEE CSS Board of Governors: 2003

- Elected Member of the IEEE CSS Board of Governors: 2004-2006 and 2010-2012

- IEEE CSS Vice President Membership Activities: 2006-2007

- IEEE CSS Vice President Conference Activities: 2008-2010

She is Senior Member of the IEEE since 2003 and Fellow of the IEEE starting from January 2012.

She is a member of the 2012 Control Systems Award committee.

Other activities:

- Reviewer of Research Projects for the National Science Foundation, USA, 2001.

- Reviewer of Research Projects for the Vidi Project (Innovational Reserach Incentives Scheme) of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in 2003.

- Reviewer of the Open Competition Exacte Wtenschappe 2006 of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in 2007.

- Reviewer of an Application as Full Professor for the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Faculty at the University of Groningen (NL) in 2003.

- Reviewer of Research Projects for the Agencie Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), France, 2011.

- Reviewer of a Tenure Track and Promotion to Associate Professor application at Boston University (BU), USA, 2011.