GREETINGS AND THANKS FROM THE GENERAL CHAIR

Welcome to the first American Control Conference inside the capital city of the United States! This year's ACC is special in other ways as well. We are the first ACC to hold a public lecture, and David Mindell's talk on "How We Interact with Robots, Feedback Loops, and Autonomous Systems: Historical Perspectives and a Look Forward" on Monday evening is an event not to miss. Moreover, instead of the traditional ACC luncheon banquet, we will have an exciting evening at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall, just several blocks away from the conference hotel. Further, we have an excellent line-up of half-day, full-day, and two-day workshops organized for Saturday and Sunday, June 15 and 16. There are also many interesting special sessions for conference attendees, and two workshops for high school students as well!

Organizing such an ambitious conference was incredibly challenging and would have been impossible without our outstanding Operating Committee. Danny Abramovitch has not only been the Program Chair, but has provided me with much needed advice and assistance on all aspects of the conference from the very beginning of the conference planning in 2007! Katie Johnson, Vice Chair for Invited Sessions, provided Danny with a lot of support. Lalit K. Mestha, Vice Chair for Special Sessions, has coordinated the special lunchtime sessions and also helped to obtain sponsors for our conference. Jointly with Danny, our Vice Chair for Industry and Applications, Haitham Hindi, solicited and guided the development of a record number of 12 tutorial sessions on emerging areas of control theory and application. We also have an excellent set of workshops being offered, thanks to the diligent work of our Workshops Chair Linda Bushnell. Zongli Lin, our Local Arrangements Chair, has worked extremely hard to ensure that all the details have been ironed out to ensure a smooth conference. And we are indebted to our Finance Chair Peter Meckl for accepting payments, keeping the books, and paying the bills for our ACC. Once the conference starts, everyone will no doubt recognize our Registration Chair Eric Frew, who will be working to ensure an efficient operation at the conference registration desk. And I owe a big thanks to Santosh Devasia for his superb job as Publicity Chair, and he often also helped keep me on track on many tasks beyond publicity. Our Publications Chair, Randy Beard, took charge of producing the program book and the proceedings on both USB and CD-ROM. Thanks to Sean Andersson, our Exhibits Chair, attendees have exciting exhibits to visit, and we also have many sponsors supporting our conference. Carolyn Beck, Vice Chair for Student Activities, oversaw the evaluation of nearly 100 papers that were nominated for the Student Best Paper Award, and she is continuing to coordinate the student travel awards. A special thank you goes to Brenn Ellsworth as well for designing the elegant ACC13 logo.

Organizing a conference of this size requires numerous individuals, and my gratitude extends to many others as well. We are forever indebted to Alessandro Astolfi of PaperPlaza, who was absolutely amazing, responding to us instantaneously 24/7. Pradeep Misra provided us with advice and support throughout, from his original role as part of the AACC leadership to his role with PaperPlaza. Bob Judd gave us invaluable advice on the many contracts we had to sign. Thanks also to the AACC leadership for their guidance, especially Russ Rhinehart, Jordan Berg, and Wayne Bequette. Tariq Samad and Faryar Jabbari also provided timely advice whenever we asked for help. Heather Jasper and others at the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel have also worked closely with us to ensure a great conference.

Last but not least, I would like to thank all of the authors, session organizers and chairs, and other volunteers and participants for helping make this ACC a success. I hope that everyone participating in ACC13 finds our technical program professionally rewarding and intellectually stimulating, that attendees will take the opportunity to renew friendships and forge new ones, and that everyone is able to enjoy some of what Washington, DC has to offer!

Enjoy ACC in Washington!

Lucy Pao
General Chair, 2013 American Control Conference