Kalman's Influence on My Scientific Work: Some Recollections and Reflections [Historical Perspectives]

I first met Rudolf Kalman in Vienna, Austria, in the spring of 1972. I had recently finished my Ph.D. at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and I was invited to give a talk on my recent results in stochastic control theory at a small workshop that Kalman also attended. Apparently, Kalman was favorably impressed with my talk because he took me out for dinner the same evening and immediately invited me to come to Florida for the coming academic year. Kalman had just moved from Stanford to the University of Florida, and this is how I became his first postdoctoral associate at his new Center for Mathematical Systems Theory in the fall of 1972.