Applied Math alum and professor receive IFAC Triennial Journal Award

Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Former PhD student Yiming Meng, now an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), and Professor Jun Liu have received the 2026 Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems Paper Prize.

The prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of hybrid systems published in the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) journal Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems. At each IFAC World Congress, the prize is awarded to the authors of two selected papers published in the journal during the preceding three years.

Meng and Liu received the award for their paper, “Lyapunov-barrier characterization of robust reach–avoid–stay specifications for hybrid systems”, published in Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems in 2023. The award will be presented during the Closing Ceremony of the 23rd IFAC World Congress, to be held August 23–28, 2026, in Busan, Republic of Korea.

This is Professor Liu's second Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems Paper Prize. He and University of Michigan Professor Necmiye Ozay received the same award in 2017 for their paper “Finite abstractions with robustness margins for temporal logic-based control synthesis.”