Claudio Altafini

Professor

My research interests are broadly in the area of modeling and control of nonlinear dynamical systems.

Presentation

Background

I received a Laurea degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padova, Italy, in 1996 and a PhD in Optimization and Systems Theory from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in 2001. I then moved to SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies) in Trieste, Italy, where I stayed until 2013. Since 2014 I am a Professor in Automatic Control in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Linkoping University.

Research

My research interests are broadly in the area of modeling and control of nonlinear dynamical systems. Over the years I have been involved with very different applications, ranging from robotics to quantum mechanics, from biological systems to complex networks. In the last few years the focus of my research has been almost exclusively on Modeling and Control of Complex Networks, for applications in Engineering and Technology, Systems Biology and Social Networks.

Selected Publications

Complex Networks:

G. Shi, C. Altafini and J. Baras. Dynamics over Signed Networks. SIAM Review, 61(2):229-257, 2019.
C Altafini. Consensus problems on networks with antagonistic interactions. IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, 58 (4), 935-946, 2013.
G Facchetti, G Iacono, C Altafini. Computing global structural balance in large-scale signed social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (52), 20953-20958, 2011.

Systems Biology:

G De Palo, G Facchetti, M Mazzolini, A Menini, V Torre, C Altafini. Common dynamical features of sensory adaptation in photoreceptors and olfactory sensory neurons. Scientific reports 3:1251, 2013.
G Facchetti, M Zampieri, C Altafini Predicting and characterizing selective multiple drug treatments for metabolic diseases and cancer. BMC systems biology 6 (1), 115, 2013.
N. Soranzo, F. Ramezani, G. Iacono and C. Altafini. Decompositions of large-scale biological systems based on dynamical properties. Bioinformatics, 28(1):76-83, 2012.

Quantum Control:

C. Altafini and F. Ticozzi. Modeling and Control of Quantum Systems: An Introduction, (tutorial paper) Special Issue on Quantum Control of the IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, 57(8):1898-1917, 2012.

See my Google scholar page for a complete list.

Teaching

From 2020 I am teaching the TSRT09 Control Theory course.
In 2014-19 I was teaching the TSRT62 Modeling and Simulation course.

I am also responsible for the PhD course Nonlinear Control, normally given every second year. In 2015 I taught two other PhD courses: Networked Dynamical Systems and Systems Biology: nonlinear mechanistic models.

Master Thesis proposals

I have several topics for Master thesis for Engineering students. Contact me if interested.

Latest Publications

Claudio Altafini, Multistability of Self-Attention Dynamics in Transformers (2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.11553

Joel Wendin, Erik G. Larsson, Claudio Altafini, Computing frustration and near-monotonicity in deep neural networks (2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05286

Luca Claude Gino Lebon, Claudio Altafini, Geometric Control Theory Over Networks: Minimal Node Cardinality Disturbance Decoupling Problems (2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16689

Muhammad Ahsan Razaq, Claudio Altafini, Signed Friedkin-Johnsen Models: Opinion Dynamics With Stubbornness and Antagonism, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 70:5037-5051 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2025.3532785

Muhammad Ahsan Razaq, Claudio Altafini, Wisdom of Crowds Effects under Antagonistic Interactions and Correlated Opinions (2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.19123