I received my B.S., my M.S., and my Ph.D. degrees from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in 1985, 1988, and 1995, respectively. I have been an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the State University of Maringá since 1989. I became full professor since 2016. The main focus of my research is the study of the behavior of the energy of distributed systems. To explain more precisely the development of my research, consider a physical phenomenon which is described by a differential partial equation and, in addition, we assume that there is an external or intrinsic mechanism (damping) acting on the system and which is responsible for the dissipation of its energy. The purpose of my study is to answer some questions related to the region where the damping must be acting in order to obtain the optimal decay rate of the energy. This subject was wisely described by one of the greatest contemporary scientists, Jacques Louis Lions (1928-2001) when he said: To "control" a system is to make it behave (hopefully) according to our "wishes," in a way compatible with safety and ethics, at the least possible cost. The systems considered here are distributed?i.e., governed (modeled) by partial differential equations (PDEs) of evolution. Our "wish" is to drive the system in a given time, by an adequate choice of the controls, from a given initial state to a final given state, which is the target.
