Mauro Salazar obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering  at  ETH Zürich in 2012 and 2015, respectively, and carried out his Master thesis in the Automatic Control Lab of EPFL. He received the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zürich in cooperation with the Ferrari Formula 1 team in 2019. Between 2019 and 2020 he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Autonomous Systems Lab in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. In April 2020 he joined Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with a co-affiliation with Eindhoven AI Systems Institute (EAISI). He was awarded the ETH Medal for his MSc and PhD theses, and his papers earned several awards, including the Best Student Paper award at the 2018 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference and at the 2022 European Control Conference, as well as the Best Paper Award at the 2024 IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference. He was nominated for TU/e Young Researcher Award in 2022 and 2025, and, in 2024, for membership in The Young Academy of KNAW. In 2025, he received the Best Master Teacher Award from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Mauro Salazar is an Associate Professor in the Control Systems Technology section, Department of Mechanical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), where he leads the MOVEMENT Research Group. He is also affiliated with Eindhoven AI Systems Institute (EAISI). His research is focused on optimization models and methods for systems and control. Specifically, he is interested in design and control methods for multi-scale cyber-socio-technical systems, which have applications in energy and mobility systems, as well as pandemic response and material design. His research goal is to create a transdisciplinary nexus between social sciences and engineering, escaping the outside of the “engineering trap”—which is when engineering researchers provide optimal answers to the wrong question, focusing on technological advancements without considering the broader social and environmental context, ultimately exacerbating undesired consequences rather than alleviating them. Through this lens, he aims at integrating sustainability and social justice within cyber-socio-technical systems that have societal impact in mobility, energy, materials, and health.