Keynote Speakers

Liuchen Chang

Biography : Liuchen Chang received B.S.E.E. from Northern Jiaotong University in 1982, M.Sc. from China Academy of Railway Sciences in 1984, and Ph.D. from Queen’ University in 1991. He joined the University of New Brunswick in 1992 and is a Professor Emeritus at UNB. He was the NSERC Chair in Environmental Design Engineering during 2001-2007, and the Principal Investigator of Canadian Wind Energy Strategic Network (WESNet) during 2008-2014. He is a long-time volunteer for IEEE of 30 years and is the President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society (2021-2022).

Dr. Chang was a recipient of CanWEA R.J. Templin Award for his contributions in the development of wind energy technologies, Innovation Award for Excellence in Applied Research in New Brunswick for his contributions in smart grid and renewable energy technologies, and PELS Sustainable Energy Systems Technical Achievement Award for his contributions in distributed energy systems. He is a fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering (FCAE). He has published more than 400 refereed papers in journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Chang has focused on research, development, demonstration and deployment of renewable energy based distributed energy systems and direct load control systems.

Brij N. Singh

Biography : Dr. Brij N. Singh has earned BE from Madan Mohan Malviya Technical University, Gorakhpur, ME from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India, all in Electrical Engineering. In 1996, Dr. Singh joined the École de Technology Supérieure, Montreal, Canada, as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. In 1999, he joined Concordia University, Montreal as a Research Fellow.

In 2000, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, as an Assistant Professor. In 2007, Dr. Singh has joined John Deere as a Staff Engineer to lead and support silicon IGBT inverter development projects for the JD 644K and JD 944K Hybrid Loaders. In 2011, he joined Advanced Technology as a Senior Staff Engineer to lead John Deere’s WBG power electronics projects. In 2020, Dr. Singh was named as the Region 4 Manager External Relationships with responsibilities to develop emerging technologies to support technology needs for the John Deere Tech Stack, Production Systems, Product Lifecycle Systems, Construction & Road Building. Dr. Singh has published over 90 research articles including papers in the IEEE Transactions and IET Journals. He has 28 approved US patents, one trade secret, and over a dozen pending patents.

In Tulane, Dr. Singh received four IEEE-Eta-Kappa-Nu teaching awards for outstanding instructions in electrical engineering. In John Deere, he has received three innovation and one collaboration awards for product and technology development projects. Dr. Singh is the winner of the 2020 IEEE Power Electronics Emerging Technology Award for “In-Vehicle Demonstration of Engine-Cooled Power-Dense Scalable SiC Inverter”. In 2020, Dr. Singh was awarded the “Title of John Deere Fellow” for exemplary knowledge leadership and significant contributions to the power electronics engineering. He is an IEEE Fellow and life member of IEEE Industrial Electronics and Power Electronics Societies and lives with his family in West Fargo, ND, USA.

Akshay Kumar Rathore

Biography : Akshay Kumar Rathore is an IEEE Fellow and expert in power electronics and control of electrical motor drives. He is currently a full Professor and Program leader of Electrical Power Engineering Degree Program jointly offered with Newcastle University, UK. He received the Gold Medal for securing the highest academic standing in his Master’s degree among all electrical engineering specializations at Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, India. He received his PhD degree in Power Electronics from University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in 2008. He had two subsequent postdoctoral research appointments with the University of Wuppertal, Germany, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA.  From November 2010 to February 2016, he served as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical   and   Computer   Engineering, National   University   of Singapore. From March 2016-Dec 2021, he served as an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical   and   Computer   Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada where he was listed in the Provost Circle of Distinction in 2021. He served as Graduate Program Director and Chair of Graduate Awards during 2020-21.

Dr. Rathore is a recipient   of   the   2013   IEEE   IAS   Andrew   W.   Smith Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award, 2014 Isao Takahashi Power Electronics Award, 2017 IEEE IES David Irwin Early Career Award, 2019 IES Publications Service Recognition Award, 2020 IEEE IAS Outstanding Area Chair Award, 2020   IEEE   Bimal   Bose   Award   for   Industrial Electronics Applications in Energy Systems and 2021 Nagamori Award. He published about 300 research papers in international journals and conferences, including 98 IEEE TRANSACTIONS. 

His research is mainly focused on the analysis and design of novel current-fed converters (topologies and modulation), soft-switching design and modulation schemes for the dc/dc converters, pulsating DC link (electrolytic capacitorless) inverters, and control of multilevel inverters. He is currently serving as the co-Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Awards Department Chair of the IEEE Industry Applications Society, AdCom Member-at-Large and Fellow Evaluation Committee member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. He is serving as the Chair of IEEE IAS Renewable and Sustainable Energy Conversion Systems Committee. He led and chaired the IEEE IAS Industrial Automation and Control Committee (2018-19) and IEEE IAS Technical Committee on Transportation Electrification (2016-17). 

He served as the Paper Review Chair (eq. to co-Editor-in-Chief) of IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications (2016-17 and 2020-21), Editor-in-Chief of IEEE IES Technology News (ITeN) (2016-18), Associate Editor of various journals, i.e., IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (2014-19), IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications (2013-present), IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification (2014-19), IEEE Journal of Emerging Selected Topic in Power Electronics (2013-19), IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (2016-19), IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy (2014-2021) and IET Power Electronics (2015-19). He edited 5 special issues on the topics of electric transportation, EV charging, marine systems, more electric aircraft, machine learning in power electronics, and renewable energy conversion in different IEEE Transactions as a guest associate editor and as guest-EIC of 2 special issues. 

Ching-Jan Chen

Biography : Ching-Jan Chen (S’08–M’12–SM’18) received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 2006 and 2011, respectively. From 2010 to 2011, he was a visiting scholar at the Center of Power Electronic Systems (CPES) of Virginia Tech., Blacksburg.

From 2011 to 2015, he was a senior IC research and development engineer with Richtek Technology Corporation, Hsinchu, Taiwan, which is Asia No.1 fabless power IC company and CPU Power IC supplier according to revenue. His work was focused on new control scheme development and IC design of the voltage regulator controller for CPU power. In February 2015, he became an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan, where he is currently an Associate Professor.

His current research interests include control, modeling, and power IC design of dc–dc and ac-dc power converters for CPU and mobile devices, and GaN driver IC design. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He is the recipient of the Young Researcher Award from the Electrical Power Engineering Division, Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan, in 2016, the Outstanding Teaching Award from NTU in 2020, the Research Contribution Award from NTU EECS in 2020, and Ta-You Wu Memorial Award (吳大猷先生紀念獎) from MOST, Taiwan, in 2021. He is the co-recipient of 2019 IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference Asia-Pacific (ITEC-AP) Best Paper Award and 2018 International Workshop on Power Supply on Chip (PwrSoC) Best Poster Award. He served more than 16 times as session chair, topic chair, and financial chair in several IEEE conferences and competitions, such as ECCE, ECCE-Asia, International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC), IFEEC, WiPDA Asia, ITEC-Asia Pacific, and VLSI-DAT. He is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He is the Secretary and then vice-chair of the IEEE PELS Taipei Chapter from 2018 till now and received the IEEE PELS Best Chapter Award in 2018.

Dr Sri Niwas Singh

Biography : Dr Sri Niwas Singh, FIEEE (USA), FNAE, FIET (UK), IE(I), IETE(I), FAvH

Prof S. N. Singh obtained his M. Tech. and Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in 1989 and 1995. Presently, Prof Singh is Director, Atal Bihari Bajpayee- Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Gwalior (MP), India (on leave from Professor (HAG), Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India). Before joining IIT Kanpur as
Associate Professor, Dr Singh worked with UP State Electricity Board as Assistant Engineer from 1988 to 1996, with Roorkee University (now IIT Roorkee) as Assistant Professor from 1996 to 2000 and with Asian Institute of Technology,

Bangkok, Thailand as Assistant Professor from 2001 to 2002. He was Vice- Chancellor of Madan Mohan Malviya University of Technology Gorakhpur during April 2017 to July 2020.

Dr Singh received several awards including Young Engineer Award 2000 of Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), Khosla Research Award of IIT Roorkee, and Young Engineer Award of CBIP New Delhi (India), 1996. Prof Singh is receipt of Humboldt Fellowship of Germany (2005, 2007) and Otto- monsted Fellowship of Denmark (2009-10). Prof Singh became first Asian to receive 2013 IEEE Educational Activity Board Meritorious Achievement Award in Continuing Education. He is also recipients of INAE Outstanding Teacher Award 2016 and IEEE R10 region (Asia-Pacific) Outstanding Volunteer Award 2016. Dr Singh is appointed as IEEE Distinguish Lecturer of Power & Energy Society from 2019 and Industry application Society for 2019-2021. He is also recipient of NPSC 2020 Academic Excellence Award and 2021 IEEE

Industry Application Society (IAS) Outstanding Educator/ Mentor Award. His research interests include power system restructuring, FACTS, power system optimization & control, security analysis, wind power, etc. Prof Singh has published more than 550 papers (h-index=60, Citation=14k+) in International/ national journals/conferences and supervised 41 PhD (7 PhD under progress). He has also written 31 book chapters, 8 Edited books and 2 text-books one on Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution and second is Basic Electrical Engineering, published by PHI, India. Prof Singh has completed three dozen of technical projects in India and abroad. His two NPTEL (YouTube) video lectures on HVDC Transmission and Power System Operation & Control are very popular. Prof Singh was Chairman, IEEE UP Section for 2013 & 2014, IEEE R10 (Asia-Pacific) Conference & Technical Seminar Coordinator 2015-18 and R10 Vice-Chair, Technical Activities (2019-2020). Dr Singh is Fellows of IEEE (USA), IET (UK), INAE, IE(I), AAIA, IETE, AvH.

Dr. Gourab Majumdar

IEEE Fellow (since 2021)
Entered IEEE-ISPSD inaugural Hall of Fame (2018)

Current job:
Senior Fellow, Power Device Works, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Japan

Academic Background:

  • Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech) degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi in 1977
  • Doctorate in Engineering (PhD) degree from Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan in 2005

Gourab Majumdar was born in India in June, 1955 and acquired Japanese nationality in October, 2018. While his name has changed to Gourab Suzuki, he continues to use Gourab Majumdar as penname. He received Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India in 1977 and Doctor of Engineering degree from Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT), Japan in 2005. He came to Japan in September, 1978, and has been living in the country since then. He started his job career at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Japan (Mitsubishi Electric) on a special OJT program in September 1978. He was employed by the same company in 1980 and, since 1983, has worked in its units responsible for advanced power semiconductor development, designing and application. From April-2012 to March-2017, he served as Executive Fellow, Semiconductor & Device Group of Mitsubishi Electric. On April-2017, he was reemployed by
Mitsubishi Electric on a contract basis and acted as Senior Fellow (Technology) for Semiconductor & Device Group of the same company until March-2021. From April-2022 until currently, he has been working as Senior Fellow for Power Device Works of Mitsubishi Electric. He has published and co-authored many technical papers and books on power semiconductor devices and holds several patents in the related fields. He is a recipient of the prestigious National Invention Award in Japan in 2005 for invention of the fundamental concept of IPM (Intelligent Power Module) and has also received several other prestigiouscawards, including the “Monozukuri Nihon Taishou” (Japan Craftsmanship Grand Prix) awardcfrom the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2013 for contribution in development and commercialization of various versions of IPM devices. He served as the General Chairman of ISPSD 2013 and has been participating as a member of PCIM’s Advisory Board and ISPSD’s Advisory Committee. He received IEEE-ISPSD Contributory Award in 2017 for playing an active role in the field of Intelligent Power Module and Power IC technologies and contributing largely to the ISPSD. He was nominated to be one of the first 32 inductees to IEEE-ISPSD Hall of Fame for his pioneering global role in progressing IGBT and IPM technologies and was awarded the prestige in May 2018. He was promoted to IEEE Fellow in 2021. He lectured courses on advanced power semiconductor devices as a visiting professor at Kyushu University and Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) for several years till 2019. Also, he has been bestowed with Honorary Professorship in 2016 by Amity University, India.

Arif Sarwat

Ph.D., Eminent Scholar Chaired Professor and Director of FPL-FIU Solar Facility and Energy, Power & Sustainability (EPS); AE IEEE IAS and ACM Surveys 

http://www.eps.fiu.edu/

Dr. Arif Sarwat has been in the industry (Siemens) and academia for more than 20 years. He is an Eminent Scholar Chaired Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Director of the FPL-FIU Solar Research Facility and Energy Power Sustainability(EPS) group at FIU. He is also the Principal Investigator for the state-of-the-art grid-connected 3MW/9MWh AI-based Renewable (AIR) Microgrid long-term project funded by FPL. His research interests include smart grids, electric vehicles, high penetration renewable systems, storage, and battery management systems, grid resiliency, large-scale data analysis, artificial intelligence, advanced metering infrastructure, smart city infrastructure, and cybersecurity. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and multiple patents. He currently has multiple funded projects; funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), industry, and  the Department of Energy (DOE). This list includes the NSF CAREER Award. He is the co-lead on the Masters in Energy & Cybersecurity education program. Previously, Dr. Sarwat worked at Siemens for more than nine years, winning three recognition awards. He is the author/co-author of a publication that won the best paper award at the Resilience Week in 2017 and a technical article that won both the best paper award in 2016 as well as the most cited paper award in 2018 from Springer’s Journal of Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy (MPCE). His team won the second-best paper award at IEEE NAPS conference in the year 2020.  Dr. Sarwat received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Research & Creative Activities in 2016, College of Engineering & Computing Worlds Ahead Performance in 2016, and FIU TOP Scholar Award in 2015 and 2019. He has been the chair of the IEEE Miami Section VT and Communication since 2012. He is an associate editor of the journals ACM Computing Surveys and IEEE IAS. For further information, please visit:http://www.eps.fiu.edu.

Dr. Tapan Sahoo

Dr. Tapan Sahoo is Executive Director (Engineering) at Maruti Suzuki India Limited and has over 32 years of experience in product design & development, supplier development, technology, cost and program management functions.

An Eminent Alumnus and graduate in Electrical Engineering from UCE – Burla, Dr. Sahoo continued his academic pursuit along with his professional work and completed his MBA and Ph.D. from Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi.

Dr. Sahoo has played a key role in upgrading the R&D capability of MSIL in the Electrical & Electronics, xEV, Powertrain, Vehicle Engineering, Cost, Prototype, Design and Planning functions. He played an instrumental role to develop the design capability of auto component supplier in India as well.

Dr Sahoo participates and contributes in various Industry, Academia, Professional and Government bodies. Some of the key roles are:

  • Co-Chairman, Technical Council of SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) encompassing Electric Mobility, Sustainable Mobility, Connected vehicles, Styling & Design, Frontier Technology & Innovation, Manufacturing & Industry 4.0.
    1. Past Chairman, International Harmonization Group of SIAM – engaged in understanding, alignment, and adaptability of international regulations for India
    2. Past Chairman, Frontier Technology Group of SIAM; the group engaged in policy formulation for Hybrid and Electric vehicles in India along with Govt of India.
    3. Chairman, India GRE group, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (Govt. of India)
    4. Chairman, SAEINDIA Northern Section, a non-profit society of automotive engineers, aiming to promote the cause of mobility
  • Member, CII National Committee on Future Mobility • Member, Board of Academics, MNNIT (Allahabad)
  • Member, OICA-GEE Panel (International Auto Manufacturer’s Association – Lighting & Light Signaling Group)

Dr Sahoo holds multiple granted patents. His research papers in the areas of strategic technology management, xEV technologies and automotive product development & policy matters have been published in national and international journals of repute.

For his contribution in the field of engineering and technology management, Dr. Sahoo has been conferred “Fellow” status by Society for Technology Management and Indian National Academy of Engineering