Name: Alina Doban
Place of Birth: Iasi, Romania
Date of Birth: December 28, 1987
Studied at TU/e: In 2010 she obtained her BSc in Automatic Control Specialization from the Department of Automatic Control and Computer Science at the Technical University Gh. Asachi of Iasi, Romania. In September 2010 she started a graduate program at Electrical Engineering at TU/e. She received her master’s degree (with honor) in 2012.
Current position: PhD student at TU/e, Department of Electrical Engineering, Control Systems group.

Why did you choose to study at TU/e at the time?
I decided long before I received my bachelor degree in Romania that I wanted to continue my studies abroad. I started looking at the best technical universities for every country. They had to have strong research groups in the area of control systems, and so I ended up with three nominees: KTH in Stockholm, DTU in Copenhagen and TU/e. Eindhoven caught my attention because of the strong relation with the industry and the university has scholarships available for international students. I applied to all three universities and got accepted everywhere. I decided on TU/e because a professor from my old university was researching what I was interested in here in Eindhoven, and because TU/e offered me a scholarship.

What are you doing now?
After TU/e came more TU/e. Upon my graduation I was offered a PhD position at the Control Systems group of the Department of Electrical Engineering. I had been considering a PhD since I was an undergraduate already, but it was my graduate program that sort of guided me in that direction. I had the opportunity to obtain funding from NWO and the Dutch Institute of Systems and Control for a PhD project my supervisors and I proposed.

My research interests include the Lyapunov stability theory, infinity norms as Lyapunov functions, set-theoretic methods in control, constrained stabilization, and systems biology.

What are your plans for the future?
I want to finish my PhD project. I haven’t given too much thought to what I’ll be doing next. I would like to do something completely different, definitely, but at the same time it should be somewhere I can use some of my PhD skills.

What advice would you give current students?
I think international experience is important, whether it is with the intention of returning home or not. At least as a student. And as far as finding a job is concerned, I’d have to quote a former Romanian professor of mine: “It’s not too late to quit your studies if you’re not happy. Take up bowling, but be the best at it. Or become a fighter on the streets, but make sure no one can defeat you”.