Baraka Olivier Mushage, Democratic Republic of Congo

Curriculum Vitae

Baraka O. Mushage was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1984. He received the Civil Engineering (Cum Laude) degree in Electrical Engineering from Université Libre des Pays des Grands Lacs (ULPGL ) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2010, the academic degrees of Diplom-Ingenieur (DI) and Doctor technicae (Dr. techn.) with distinction in Information Technology from Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria, in 2014 and 2017, respectively. After completing his graduate studies, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Sciences Engineering of the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technologies of the ULPGL in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a Researcher and Lecturer. His research interests include nonlinear robust, intelligent and fault tolerant control of dynamical systems.

Reflection

Before going to Austria, I was a teaching assistant in my home university and I knew that I had to gain more than my Civil Engineering degree in order to enjoy a fruitful research and teaching career. I knew that I would need to study and get a PhD degree in technical sciences from a very good university. The only way to achieve this goal was getting a scholarship. Thankfully, I was granted a scholarship in Austria for my Master and doctorate studies for a period of four years. Therefore, I had to work very hard in order to be efficient and achieve my goal during those four years. Fortunately, I have successfully completed my Masters and PhD in time. Besides the degrees obtained at the end of my stay at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, I have gained new skills and experience such that at the completion of my studies I was hired directly by my home university as a Professor. In addition to the scientific knowledge acquired during my stay in Austria, I was lucky to meet people from different places around the world. I had the chance to make friends and build special relationships through which I had the opportunity to learn more about the cultures and customs in other countries. Thanks to this, I feel like I can go to many new places in the world being able to adapt myself to different life conditions or situations as I have discovered that people from different places in the world have more similarities than differences. Another important thing that I have learned during my stay in Austria is the research and teaching approach of some European professors that I find really interesting. I will try to practice it and see how this can have a positive impact on my research and teaching career.