Idris Kempf is a Senior Research Associate in the Control Group of the Department of Engineering Science and a Stipendiary Lecturer at Keble College.
His research focuses on Control Engineering, specifically the control of biosystems. As part of the EEBio project and the Engineered Biotechnology Research Group, he works at the interface of Control Engineering, Synthetic Biology, and Robotics to develop new biotechnologies. He is designing bio-based and cybergenetic feedback controllers that enable the analysis and optimisation of biosystems and biological processes. His research has application in various fields, such as biomedicine, where it is used to study antimicrobial resistances and agriculture, where it contributes to the development of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
Idris has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Robotics, Systems, and Control from ETH Zurich. He received his DPhil in Engineering Science from Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, where he developed and implemented a control system for Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility. This system stabilises an electron beam circulating at relativistic speeds around the synchrotron. During his DPhil, Idris also co-founded OxVent, a start-up that designs low-cost mechanical ICU ventilators.
Idris has been awarded the EPSRC Doctoral Prize and the EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account Technology Grant. He teaches mathematics (Paper P1 and A1) and control engineering (Paper A2).