A recent accidental meeting between the two authors of this column [IEEE Control Systems Society President Magnus Egerstedt (ME) and Prof. John Ringwood (JR) from Maynooth University] in an unlikely meeting place—Universidad Nacional de la Plata in Argentina (UNLP)—led us to ponder the truly global nature of the control community. JR was at UNLP for a research visit (having had a collaboration with that university for several years on the control of wave energy systems) and was also involved in the Argentine Meeting on Marine Energies (ENAEM)/Centre for Ocean Energy (COER) Wave Energy Workshop held in Buenos Aires some days previously. During a subsequent research meeting at UNLP, he was told that there might be a brief interruption since an “American guy” was visiting. To his great surprise, ME appeared at the door. ME was on a visit to La Plata to look at possibilities for collaboration between UNLP and the University of California, Irvine. What made this encounter more remarkable was that the two authors had already had multiple chance encounters the year before, including at the European Control Conference (ECC) 2022 in London and an even less likely meeting spot: the 2022 Brazilian Congress on Automation in Fortaleza ( Figure 1 ).

中文翻译：

---

全球控制界[主席致辞]

最近，本专栏的两位作者 [IEEE 控制系统协会主席 Magnus Egerstedt (ME) 和梅努斯大学的 John Ringwood 教授 (JR)] 在一个不太可能会面的地点 — 阿根廷拉普拉塔国立大学 (UNLP) 偶然会面——引导我们思考控制社区的真正全球性。 JR 曾在 UNLP 进行研究访问（与该大学在波浪能系统控制方面合作多年），并且还参与了阿根廷海洋能源会议 (ENAEM)/海洋能源中心 (COER) Wave几天前在布宜诺斯艾利斯举行了能源研讨会。在随后在 UNLP 举行的一次研究会议上，他被告知，由于“美国人”来访，可能会有短暂的中断。让他大吃一惊的是，ME出现在门口。 ME 正在访问拉普拉塔，探讨 UNLP 与加州大学欧文分校之间合作的可能性。更引人注目的是，两位作者在前一年已经有过多次偶遇，包括在伦敦举行的 2022 年欧洲控制会议 (ECC) 以及一个更不可能的会面地点：在福塔雷萨举行的 2022 年巴西自动化大会（ 图1 ）。