Roy McCann

Professor & Site Director, UA

Dr. McCann is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Arkansas. His research interests are grid-connected battery energy storage systems, electric power systems and power electronics, and feedback control systems.

Yue Zhao

Associate Professor & Executive Director, UA

Yue Zhao received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 2014 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Since August 2015, he has been with the University of Arkansas (UA), Fayetteville, USA, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He also serves as the Executive Director for the National Science Foundation (NSF) I/UCRC on GRid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems (GRAPES).

His current research interests include electric machines and drives, power electronics, and renewable energy systems. He has 4 U.S. patents granted and co-authored more than 150 papers in refereed journals and international conference proceedings.

Dr. Zhao is an Associated Editor of the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics (JESTPE) and IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics. He was a recipient of 2020 IEEE Industry Applications Society Andrew W. Smith Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award, and 2018 NSF CAREER Award.

Robert Cuzner

Associate Professor & Site Director, UWM

Prior to coming to the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Dr. Cuzner worked in industry for 24 years developing systems for power generation, power conversion, and variable speed motor drives for both Navy and industrial applications. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He is active in various IEEE committees, including serving as chair of the Industrial Drives Committee of the Industrial Applications Society from 2006-2008, participating in development of standards in the area of shipboard power conversion architecture for the IEEE, and co-editor for IEEE Electrification Magazine.

Dr. Cuzner’s research focus includes DC, Medium Voltage DC and hybrid AC/DC power distribution architectures for Naval shipboard, community microgrids, smart homes and buildings and industrial parks; micro-grid protection and distribution using solid state protection, solid state transformer and fault mitigating power converters; EMI mitigation and packaging of Wide Band Gap power semiconductor based converter systems; and development of power electronic topologies and systems that are simultaneously power dense and grid compatible for Low Voltage and Medium Voltage applications.

Lingfeng Wang

Associate Professor, UWM

Dr. Lingfeng Wang is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he directs the Cyber-Physical Energy Systems Laboratory. He was previously an Assistant Professor at the University of Toledo, Ohio and an Associate Transmission Planner at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), Folsom, California. He received his Ph.D. from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas in 2008. He is an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, and serves on the Steering Committee for IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing. He is also on the Editorial Board for several other international journals including Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments (Elsevier) and Intelligent Industrial Systems (Springer). His major research interests include power system reliability and cybersecurity, renewable energy integration, intelligent and energy-efficient buildings, electric vehicles integration, microgrid analysis, cyber-physical systems, and industrial automation and manufacturing.

Alan Mantooth

Ph.D., P.E., FIEEE

Distinguished Professor & Founding Director, UA

Alan Mantooth is the Center’s Founding Director. He has 24 years of academic experience in addition to eight years in industry. He has served in several leadership positions in both industry and academe, and currently serves as Founding Director for the Center for GRid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems (GRAPES) and Deputy Director for the NSF Engineering Research Center for Power Optimization in Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS). He is the Director of the UA Power Group, a team of 16 faculty, over 100 graduate students, and over a dozen full-time technical and administrative staff.

After returning to academe he has built a research group of 25 students, on average, with research expenditures of approximately $5M a year. Since its inception in 2005, he has served as the National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission’s (NCREPT) Executive Director and overseen its research and building program.

Dr. Mantooth has published over 550 refereed publications in CAD, modeling and electronic design and packaging, as well as three books. He is an IEEE Fellow, has served on the IEEE PELS Advisory Committee since 2004, is a former President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, and is currently serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics.

Juan Balda

Ph.D., University of Natal (Durban, South Africa), 1986; IEEE M'78 SM'94

University Professor, Department Head, UA

Professor Balda received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Universidad Nacional del Sur (Bahía Blanca, Argentina) in 1979. He then worked for two and one-half years at Hidronor S.A., an electric utility in the Southwestern part of Argentina.

He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Natal (Durban, South Africa) in 1986. He was then employed as a researcher and a part-time lecturer at the University of Natal until July 1987. He then spent two years as a visiting Assistant Professor at Clemson University, South Carolina.

He has been at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville since July 1989, where he is currently a University Professor and Department Head. His main research interests are Power Electronics, Electric Power Distribution Systems, Motor Drives and Electric Power Quality. He is a senior member of the IEEE, member of the Power Electronics and Industry Applications Societies, and the honor society Eta Kappa Nu. He is a faculty advisor to the IEEE Power Electronics Society branch.

Adel Nasiri

Distinguished Professor, USC

Prof. Nasiri’s work in engineering education and research hopes to enhance the educational experience so more students choose and graduate with engineering degrees. He seeks to improve the content of the educational and research experience to better match the needs of employers and the world.

Dr. Nasiri’s research seeks to advance the fields of sustainable energy sources, grid integration of distributed generations, microgrids, energy efficiency, and energy security. He is also working to use various types of energy storage devices to support variable energy sources and loads.

Dr. Nasiri’s research focus is on renewable energy systems, distributed generations, microgrids, grid interface, energy security, energy storage modeling, interface and controls, vehicle-to-grid, power electronics, and electric drives.

Dr. Nasiri earned his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, and his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago.

Honors and awards include the Excellence in Engineering Faculty Fellow in Power Electronics, 2010 Milwaukee Young Engineer of the Year, the National Science Foundation GOALI Award, and the Graduate School/UWM Foundation Research Award.

Brian Armstrong

Professor & Department Co-Chair, UWM

Dr. Brian Armstrong is currently a Professor and Department Co-Chair in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He received his Ph.D. from the Electrical Engineering/Robotics Department at Stanford University, in 1988. His major research interests include image metrology and six degree of freedom spatial sensing from images, medical imaging applications of spatial sensing from images, and human motion analysis applications of spatial sensing from images. His contributions have led to advances in medicine (such as motion tracking to improve MRI imaging), robotics and Doppler radar.

David Huitink

Assistant Professor, UA

Since joining U of A in 2016, Professor Huitink has built a research program at the intersection of thermal and materials sciences, with primary application in creating solutions for enabling high power dense and reliable electronics. This includes novel material and manufacturing approaches to thermal management of power electronics in electric aircraft and automobiles, as well as development of materials and process methodologies for multifunctional packaging architectures for heat dissipation and structural stability in extending device lifetimes.

Dr. Huitink spent 5 years in industry, working in microelectronics technology development and manufacturing at Intel Corporation, he where he served as Quality & Reliability Engineering Program Manager for Intel's Custom Foundry Division. There he pioneered the development of advanced methods of predicting reliability of silicon-based flip chip microelectronic packages, as well as developed testing protocols and FEA methods for governing Design for Reliability (DfR) guidance.  He managed the foundry customer adoption of 2.5D packaging technology.  Prior to his industry experience, Dr. Huitink received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow, working on complex nano-scale interactions at material interfaces under chemical and mechanical influence.

Chanyeop Park

Assistant Professor, UWM

Dr. Chanyeop Park is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He was an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Research Director of the Paul B. Jacob High Voltage Laboratory at Mississippi State University from 2019 – 2022. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech from 2018 - 2019. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2018, and his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea, in 2013 and 2011, respectively. He is an IEEE Senior Member, a Technical Committee member of the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society, and a member of the Cigre D1.64 - Cryogenic Dielectrics Working Group. He serves as a reviewer of IEEE Transaction on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transaction on Power Delivery, IEEE Transaction on Transportation Electrification, IEEE Transaction on Applied Superconductivity, and IOP Superconductor Science and Technology. Dr. Park’s research identifies, characterizes, and addresses existing and emerging dielectric challenges in advanced power and energy technologies. His research interests include partial discharge, electrets, nonlinear electric field grading materials, soft electronic materials, lightning resistant materials, cryogenics, low-temperature plasma, applied superconductivity, and switchgear.

Xiaoqing Song

Assistant Professor, UA

Dr. Xiaoqing Song joined the University of Arkansas in August 2022 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering.  From 2017 to 2022, he worked with ABB U.S. Corporate Research Center as a principal research scientist and led multi-discipline research and R&D projects in the field of solid state and hybrid circuit breakers, protection coordination in low voltage and medium voltage DC distribution systems.  He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees with Beijing Institute of Technology, China, in 2009 and 2012, respectively, and received his Ph.D. degree with North Carolina State University in 2017, all in electrical engineering.

Dr. Song's current research interests include wide bandgap power semiconductor devices, power electronics packaging and solid-state switch based power system protection. He has published more than 40 peer reviewed journal and conference papers, two book chapters and filed 14 U.S. and international patents. He is the recipient of 2016 Outstanding Young European Power Electronics (EPE) Association Member Award, 2020 ABB Inventor of the Year Award and 2021 ABB Publisher of the Year Award, ITEC 2022 Best Paper Award. He is an IEEE senior member and an Associate Editor of Open Journal of Power Electronics.

Feng Guo

Assistant Professor, UWM

Dr. Feng Guo received his B.Eng. from China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China, in 2014, and received M.S. (Hons.) from Northeastern University, Shenyang, China, in 2017, both in electrical engineering, and the Ph.D. degree at the Power Electronics, Machines and Control (PEMC) Research Group in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K., in 2021.

From 2022 to 2024, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Power Electronic Systems Laboratory at Arkansas (PESLA), University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA. Since January 2024, he has been with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WI, USA, where he is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. His research interests include high efficiency and high power-density multilevel converters, advanced control and pulse-width-modulation strategy, wide-bandgap power device applications, soft-switching technology, electric powertrain and propulsion drives, etc.

Dr. Guo was the recipient of the 2022 IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Transactions Second Place Prize Paper Award. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications and IEEE Open Journal of Industry Applications.