Keynote Speakers

PowerTech 2023 presents the keynote speakers for the event, in alphabetical order:

Professor Anuradha Annaswamy

Director of the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory at MIT, Past President, IEEE CSS, IEEE & IFAC Fellow

Professor Anuradha Annaswamy

Director of the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory at MIT, Past President, IEEE CSS, IEEE & IFAC Fellow

Dr. Anuradha Annaswamy is the Director of the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory at MIT and a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her research interests pertain to adaptive control theory and applications to aerospace, automotive, and propulsion systems, cyber physical systems science, and CPS applications to Smart Grids, Smart Cities, and Smart Infrastructures. Dr. Annaswamy received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Yale in 1985. Her research is supported by NSF RIPS, NSF Eager awards, NSF CPS Synergy, NSF CPS Breakthrough, Boeing, Ford-MIT Alliance, Department of Energy, and Air-Force Research Laboratory. Dr. Annaswamy is the author of a hundred journal publications and numerous conference publications, co-author of a graduate textbook on adaptive control (2004), co-editor of several reports including “Systems & Control for the future of humanity, research agenda: Current and future roles, impact and grand challenges,” (Elsevier) “IEEE Vision for Smart Grid Control: 2030 and Beyond,” (IEEE Xplore) and Impact of Control Technology, (ieeecss.org/main/IoCT-report, ieeecss.org/general/IoCT2-report). She has received several awards including the George Axelby and Control Systems Magazine best paper awards from the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), the Presidential Young Investigator award from NSF, the Hans Fisher Senior Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study at the Technische Universität München, the Donald Groen Julius Prize from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, a Distinguished Member Award, and a Distinguished Lecturer Award from IEEE CSS. Dr. Annaswamy is a Fellow of the IEEE and IFAC. She has served as the Vice President for Conference Activities (2014-15), and is currently serving as the VP for Technical Activities (2017-18) in the Executive Committee of the IEEE CSS. She is the Deputy Editor of the Elsevier publication Annual Reviews in Control (2016-present).

Claudia Blanco

Chief Innovation Officer Grid Solutions business, CSTO Office - GE Renewable Energy

Claudia Blanco

Chief Innovation Officer Grid Solutions business, CSTO Office - GE Renewable Energy

Claudia Blanco is the Chief Innovation Officer of GE’s Grid Solutions, delivering innovative, scalable solutions through customer partnerships and technology incubation. With a focused team she defines and executes product development Proof of Concept (POC) and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) projects to test new approaches aiming at delivering unrivalled customer value and business plans for profitable growth. Claudia has 30 years’ experience in different industries and in key technical and leadership roles in the areas of Manufacturing & Operations, R&D, Product & Business Development. She started her career at Delphi automotive before joining the company in 2010 as the Global Director of Manufacturing Engineering & Industrial Development. She then moved to leading globally the advance and additive manufacturing organization and became Lean Leader before managing Engineering Operations. She has an Executive MBA, a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and another in Computer Science. She is also Black Belt, SixSigma and Xshainin certified.

Professor Pierluigi Mancarella

Chair Professor of the Electrical Power Systems - University of Melbourne, IEEE Fellow

Professor Pierluigi Mancarella

Chair Professor of the Electrical Power Systems - University of Melbourne, IEEE Fellow

Pierluigi Mancarella is the Chair Professor of Electrical Power Systems at The University of Melbourne, Australia, and Professor of Smart Energy Systems at The University of Manchester, UK. He received his MSc (2002) and PhD (2006) degrees from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, worked as a post-doc at Imperial College London, UK, and has held visiting positions in the US (NREL), France (Ecole Centrale de Lille), Chile (University of Chile), and China (Tsinghua University). Pierluigi’s research interests include techno-economic modelling of low-carbon grids, multi-energy systems, energy system planning under uncertainty, and reliability and resilience of future networks. He has been involved in/led more than 80 research projects worldwide and actively engaged with energy policy in the UK, Europe and Australia, and is author of several books and of over 400 research publications and reports. Pierluigi is a Fellow of the IEEE; an IEEE Power and Energy Society Distinguished Lecturer; an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and of the IEEE Transactions on Energy Markets, Policy and Regulation; the Convenor of the Cigre C6/C2.34 Working Group on “Flexibility provision from distributed energy resources”; and the inaugural Chair of the Working Group on Energy of the IEEE European Public Policy Initiative. He was awarded the 2017 veski Innovation Fellowship by the Victorian Government for his “FlexCity” project on multi-energy urban virtual power plants, and an international Newton Prize 2018 for his UK-Chile Newton-Picarte project on power system resilience. Pierluigi led the Melbourne Energy Institute’s work “Power system security assessment of the future National Electricity Market” for the Australian Chief Scientist’s “Finkel Review” (2017) and is currently working closely with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) and a number of other industry stakeholders in the development of distributed energy marketplaces and new power system security, reliability and resilience services and markets.

Jelena Matejic

General Manager of EMS - Serbian TSO

Jelena Matejic

General Manager of EMS - Serbian TSO

Jelena Matejić holds the position of General Manager of Elektromreža Srbije Joint Stock Company Belgrade. She has Master’s degree in Economics, Marketing expert. In addition, she took specialist courses of WIFI institute (Austrian Development Agency) and earned a project manager title. She holds certificates from numerous seminars, courses, trainings dealing with the following subjects: business plan, feasibility study preparation and management skills. She worked with MARK PLAN, marketing research, as an external assistant. Her professional career was then linked to DELTA SPORT d.o.o. where she first worked in Finance department, and finally moving up to the position of a retail development manager and assistant to the acting Chief Investment Officer (CIO). In 2006 she shifted to the position of assistant CIO in DROGA KOLINSKA GROUP; from 2012 she is Director of Investments and Investment Maintenance for Serbia and Macedonia in ATLANTIC GROUP. As of October 2012, she started employment with the Public Enterprise Elektromreža Srbije, on the position of Executive Director for Investment and Strategy, and she was appointed to the position of acting Director on the 29thDecember 2016. She was also appointed the member of Managing Board and member of the Supervisory Board of the Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS), respectively. As of February 2015, she has been performing the public function of a chairperson of the Serbian Equity Fund Council.

John McDonald

GE Grid Solutions - Smart Grid Business Development Leader, IEEE PES Past President, U. S. National Academy of Engineering, IEEE Life Fellow, CIGRE Honorary Member

John McDonald

GE Grid Solutions - Smart Grid Business Development Leader, IEEE PES Past President, U. S. National Academy of Engineering, IEEE Life Fellow, CIGRE Honorary Member

John D. McDonald, P.E., is Smart Grid Business Development Leader for GE's Grid Solutions business. John has 46 years of experience in the electric utility transmission and distribution industry. John received his B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. degrees from Purdue University, and an M.B.A. degree from the University of California-Berkeley. John is a Life Fellow of IEEE (member for 49 years), and was awarded the IEEE Millennium Medal, the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Excellence in Power Distribution Engineering Award, the IEEE PES Substations Committee Distinguished Service Award, the IEEE PES Meritorious Service Award, the 2015 CIGRE Distinguished Member Award and the 2015 CIGRE USNC Attwood Associate Award. John is Past President of the IEEE PES, the VP for Technical Activities for the US National Committee (USNC) of CIGRE, the Past Chair of the IEEE PES Substations Committee, and the IEEE Division VII Past Director. John was on the Board of Governors of the IEEE-SA (Standards Association) and is an IEEE Foundation Director-Elect. John received the 2009 Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer Award from Purdue University. John teaches a Smart Grid course at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Smart Grid course for GE, and Smart Grid courses for various IEEE PES local chapters as an IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer. John has published one hundred fifty papers and articles, has co-authored five books and has one US patent.

Dr Dejan Ostojic

Past Sector Leader for Energy in the World Bank, a member of the Supervisory Board of Elektroprivreda Srbije, EPS a.d.

Dr Dejan Ostojic

Past Sector Leader for Energy in the World Bank, a member of the Supervisory Board of Elektroprivreda Srbije, EPS a.d.

Dr. Dejan Ostojic served as Sector Leader for Energy in the World Bank, independent member of the Supervisory Board of Ukrenergo, and senior adviser to several international organizations. During his 24-years tenure at the World Bank, Dr. Ostojic led the Bank policy dialog and investment operations in the energy sector in more than 20 countries in Europe and Central Asia, East and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining the World Bank, Dr. Ostojic was Partner and Area Manager in Harza Engineering Company, Chicago, USA; visiting Fulbright Scholar at Purdue University, USA; and Assistant Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade. He is Senior Member of IEEE and CIGRE and authored/ co-authored more than 30 technical papers and three books in the field of energy and power systems. Dr. Ostojic received several awards for professional excellence including the World Bank President’s Award, the IFC Corporate Award, and the Fulbright Scholarship Award. He served as invited speaker on a number of international events and conferences, including the 2015 UN General Assembly meeting on the establishment of Sustainable Development Goals, the World Energy Congress, and the 2016 Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics Conference.

Professor Mario Paolone

Chair of the Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory - EPFL, IEEE Fellow

Professor Mario Paolone

Chair of the Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory - EPFL, IEEE Fellow

Mario Paolone (M’07, SM’10, F’22) received the M.Sc. (with hons.) and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 1998 and 2002. In 2005, he was an Assistant Professor in power systems with the University of Bologna, where he was with the Power Systems Laboratory until 2011. Since 2011, he has been with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, where he is Full Professor and the Chair of the Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory. His research interests are on power systems with particular reference to real-time monitoring and operational aspects, power systems protections, dynamics and transients. Dr. Paolone’s most significant contributions are in the field of PMU-based situational awareness of Active Distribution Networks (ADNs) and in the field of exact, convex and computationally-efficient methods for the optimal planning and operation of ADNs. Dr. Paolone was the founder Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier journal Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks.

Professor Christian Rehtanz

Head of the Institute of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency and Energy Economics (ie3) - TU Dortmund University, member of Academy of Science Berlin-Brandenburg, IEEE Fellow

Professor Christian Rehtanz

Head of the Institute of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency and Energy Economics (ie3) - TU Dortmund University, member of Academy of Science Berlin-Brandenburg, IEEE Fellow

Christian Rehtanz received his diploma degree in electrical engineering at the TU Dortmund University, Germany, in 1994 and his Ph.D. in 1997. In 2003 he received the venia legendi in electrical power systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ). From 2000 on he worked at ABB Corporate Research, Switzerland. He became head of technology for the global ABB business area of power systems in 2003 and director of ABB Corporate Research in China in 2005. Since 2007 Rehtanz has been head of the Institute of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency and Energy Economics (ie3) at the TU Dortmund University. He is a member of the Academy of Science Berlin-Brandenburg in Germany and Fellow of IEEE. Rehtanz’ research activities in the field of electrical power systems and power economics include technologies for network enhancement and congestion relief like stability assessment, coordinated network-control, Smart Grid Technologies and ICT for power system control and operation as well as integration and control of distributed generation, storages and electric vehicles.

Professor Vijay Vittal

Regents Professor, Ira A. Fulton Chair Professor, ASU Foundation Professor - Arizona State University, U.S. National Academy of Engineering, IEEE Fellow

Professor Vijay Vittal

Regents Professor, Ira A. Fulton Chair Professor, ASU Foundation Professor - Arizona State University, U.S. National Academy of Engineering, IEEE Fellow

Regents Professor Vijay Vittal is the Ira A. Fulton Chair Professor (2005) and ASU Foundation Professor in Electric Power Systems at Arizona State University. Prior to ASU, Vittal was an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor at the Iowa State University, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. In addition, Vittal was a Murray and Ruth Harpole Professor and director of the university’s Electric Power Research Center and site director of the National Science Foundation IUCRC Power System Engineering Research Center. He also served as the program director for power systems for the National Science Foundation Division of Electrical and Communication Systems in Washington, D.C., from 1993 to 1994. He was the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems from 2005 to 2011. Professor Vittal was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2004. In 2018, he received the IEEE Power and Energy Society Prabha. S. Kundur Power System Dynamics and Control Award and the Utility Variable-Generation Integration Group Achievement Award. In 2013, he was awarded the IEEE Herman Halperin Transmission and Distribution Technical Field Award. He also received the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award in 2000. He was elected an IEEE Fellow in 1997 and also was awarded the U.S. National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985.