Dr. Rafael E. Vásquez received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2002, and an M.Sc. in Engineering with an emphasis in Automation in 2007, both from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB), Medellin, Colombia. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA in 2011, with a Fulbright Scholarship. Rafael is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UPB, in the area of dynamics, systems, and control. His research interests include robotics, marine systems, ocean sciences and technologies, navigation, guidance, and control of unmanned vehicles, vibrations, machine monitoring, machine learning and intelligent systems, advanced manufacturing, process control, engineering design, renewable energies, sustainable development, and engineering education. He has been a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) since 2005, and a member of the technical committees in Marine Systems and Plant Manufacturing control of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) since 2017 and 2023, respectively.