Prof. Andy Knight
University of Calgary, Canada, IEEE IAS President
IEEE FELLOW

Andy Knight is a Professor and Head of Electrical and Software Engineering at the University of Calgary. His research program focuses on the challenges of integrating renewable energy sources into electrical systems, energy efficiency, and electrical energy conversion.
Dr. Knight was awarded the PhD from the University of Cambridge and was a Professor at the University of Alberta prior to joining Calgary. He is a Professional Engineer registered in the Province of Alberta, Senior Member of IEEE and is a recipient of prize paper awards from IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) and IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS).
He is currently the Vice President of IEEE Industry Applications Society, a member of the Steering Committee for IEEE Electrification Magazine, and has previously held various roles with IEEE including Chairing the Steering Committees the for IEEE Energy Conversion Congress & Exposition and the IEEE International Electric Machines and Drives Conference, as a member of the Steering Committees for IEEE Journal on Selected and Emerging Topics in Power Electronics, IEEE Open Journal on Industry Applications, and Chair of IEEE Smart Grid R&D Committee.

Prof. AYMAN EL-REFAIE
Marquette University, USA
IEEE FELLOW

Ayman M. El-Refaie received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison on 2002, and 2005 respectively. Between 2005 and 2016 he has been a principal engineer and a project leader at the Electrical Machines and Drives Lab at General Electric Global Research Center. His interests include electrical machines and drives. Since January 2017 he joined Marquette University as the Werner Endowed Chair for Energy Sustainability. He has over 200 journal and conference publications. He has 48 issued US patents.
At GE, he worked on several projects that involve the development of advanced electrical machines for various applications including, aerospace, traction, wind, and water desalination. He was the chair for the IEEE IAS Transportation Systems committee and an associate editor for the Electric Machines committee. He was a technical program chair for the IEEE 2011 Energy Conversion Conference and Exposition (ECCE). He was the general chair for ECCE 2014 and 2015 ECCE steering committee chair. He was the general chair of IEMDC 2019. He was the IEEE IAS Industrial Power Conversion Systems Department. He was the IAS Publications Department Chair and member of the IEEE Industry Applications Society executive board. He is currently serving as the IAS president-elect . He is an IEEE Fellow and a member of Sigma Xi He received several prestigious awards including the IEEE IAS Industrial Power Conversion Systems Department Gerald Kliman Innovator Award and the 2022 ICEM Arthur Ellison Achievement Award. He is the recipient of three paper awards.

 

Prof. João P. S. Catalão,
University of Porto, Portugal
IEEE FELLOW

João P. S. Catalão is an IEEE Fellow. He received the M.Sc. degree from the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon, Portugal, in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree and Habilitation for Full Professor ("Agregação") from the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Covilha, Portugal, in 2007 and 2013, respectively. Currently, he is a Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), Porto, Portugal. He was the Primary Coordinator of the EU-funded FP7 project SiNGULAR, a 5.2-million-euro project involving 11 industry partners. He has authored or coauthored more than 500 journal publications and 400 conference proceedings papers, with an h-index of 89 and more than 30,000 citations (according to Google Scholar), having supervised more than 120 post-docs, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and other students with project grants. He was the General Chair and General Co-Chair of SEST 2019 and SEST 2020, respectively, after being the inaugural Technical Chair and co-founder of SEST 2018. He is a Senior Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NEURAL NETWORKS AND LEARNING SYSTEMS. Furthermore, he is an Associate Editor of nine other IEEE TRANSACTIONS/JOURNALS. He was an IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Fellows Committee Member in 2022 and 2024. He was recognized as one of the Outstanding Associate Editors 2020 of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, and one of the Outstanding Associate Editors 2021 of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS. He has multiple Highly Cited Papers in Web of Science. He has won 5 Best Paper Awards at IEEE Conferences. Furthermore, he was the recipient of the 2017-2022 (for the sixth consecutive year) FEUP Scientific Recognition Diplomas. His research interests include power system operations and planning, power system economics and electricity markets, distributed renewable generation, demand response, smart grid, and multi-energy carriers.

 

Prof. Dajun Du,
Shanghai University, China

Du Dajun, Shanghai Youth Science and Technology Venus, winner of Shanghai Talent Development Fund. Presided over more than 10 projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, such as the cultivation of major research plans, the surface, the Youth Fund, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission's basic key projects, and enterprise commissions. He has published more than 130 SCI/EI papers in IEEE journals. Apply for 28 intellectual property rights, authorize 6 invention patents, and register 9 software copyrights. He has won the first prize of the 2018 Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award, the second prize of the 2017 Shanghai Teaching Achievement Award, the second prize of the 2013 Shanghai Natural Science Award, the Best Student Paper Award at the 2018 IMIOT&ICSEE International Conference, the Best Paper Award at the 2017 LSMS&ICSEE International Conference, and the 2018 China Excellent papers of the Simulation Society, 2018 and 2016 Excellent Master's Thesis Advisor of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, 2018 Shanghai University's 6th Postgraduate "Good Mentor in My Mind", 2016 Shanghai University Outstanding Communist Party Member, 2013 Shanghai University Outstanding Young Teacher and other honorary titles.

Prof. Weimin Wu,
Shanghai Maritime University

Weimin Wu received Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2005.
He worked as a research engineer in the Delta Power Electronic Center (DPEC), Shanghai, from July, 2005 to June, 2006. Since July, 2006, he has been a Faculty Member at Shanghai Maritime University, where he is currently a Full Professor in Department of Electrical Engineering. He was a Visiting Professor in the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, USA, from Sept. 2008 to March. 2009. From Nov. 2011 to Jan. 2014, he was also a visiting professor in the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Demark, working at the Center of Reliable Power Electronics (CORPE). He has coauthored over 180 papers and holds 20 patents. He has won the Elsevier Highly Cited Scholar from 2020 to now. His areas of interests include power converters for renewable energy systems, power quality, smart grid, and energy storage technology.
Dr. Wu serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY ELECTRONICS and also as the Director of “Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of ‘Full Penetration’ Far-Reaching Offshore Ocean Energy and Power” .