Sean Meyn received a BA in mathematics from UCLA in 1982, and a PhD in electrical engineering from McGill University in 1987, with Peter Caines. He is now Professor and Robert C. Pittman Eminent Scholar Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, director of the Laboratory for Cognition & Control, and director of the Florida Institute for Sustainable Energy. His academic research interests include theory and applications of decision and control, stochastic processes, and optimization. He is a fellow of the IEEE.

Meyn has held visiting positions at universities all over the world, including the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1997-1998), where he was a Fulbright Research Scholar. During his latest sabbatical, during the 2006-2007 academic year, he was a visiting professor at MIT and the United Technologies Research Center (UTRC). His award-winning 1993 monograph with Richard Tweedie, Markov Chains and Stochastic Stability, has been cited thousands of times in journals in a range of fields. The latest version is published in the Cambridge Mathematical Library.

For the past ten years, his applied research has focused on engineering, markets, and policy in energy systems. He regularly engages in industry, government, and academic panels on these topics, and hosts an annual workshop at the University of Florida.