Speakers

Adel Nasiri

Adel Nasiri, Ph.D., Fellow IEEE, is an expert in high power electronic development, grid resiliency, renewable energy, and energy storage. He has over 25 years of experience in academia and industry.

He is presently a Thomas Gregory Endowed Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of South Carolina. His research interests are high power converters, grid resiliency, energy storage, and microgrids. Previously, he worked at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) from 2005 to 2021 and served in various roles including founding and Interim Executive Director, Connected Systems Institute (CSI) and Director, Center for Sustainable Electrical Energy, and the site director for the NSF center on Grid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems (GRAPES). He has published numerous technical journal and conference papers and co-authored two books and several book chapters on related topics. He also holds nine patent disclosures.

Dr. Nasiri is the past chair of IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Committee on renewable and sustainable energy conversion. He is also an Editor of Power Components and Systems, and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Power Electronics and was an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid (2013-2019) and paper review chair for IAS (2018-2019). He was the general Chair of 2012 IEEE Symposium on Sensorless Electric Drives, 2014 International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications (ICRERA 2014), and 2014 IEEE Power Electronics and Machines for Wind and Water Applications (PEMWA 2014).

Andrew Meintz

As NREL's chief engineer for electric vehicle charging and grid integration, Andrew Meintz provides strategic oversight for the lab’s EV grid integration research, with a focus on developing and evaluating integrated systems connecting EVs, charging infrastructure, power grids, buildings, and renewable energy sources. Related activities include examining opportunities and impacts associated with a full range of charging technologies—from home-based Level 1 charging to extreme fast charging. This body of work aims to enable a more adaptive, renewable, and resilient electric grid. Before joining NREL, he served as a battery systems engineer at General Motors, where he analyzed and designed lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

Aric Haynes

Technical expert in the development and integration of power electronics for Vehicle Electronics and Architectures (VEA) group at the DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC). Typical duties include:

• Developing electrical power system architectures to meet the needs of military ground vehicles including the Ground Vehicle Electrical Power Architecture (GVEPA), its various power electronic hardware specifications, and supporting power standards
• Providing subject matter expertise to VEA Power Team customers and suppliers on all electrical power, thermal, and safety related technical matters
• Developing performance specifications for advanced wide bandgap power semiconductor applications, including power inverters and converters for MIL-STD-1275 and MIL-STD-3072 power systems
• Producing power system design, analysis, and detail with SysML, Matlab, Simulink, State-Flow, PLECS, and Powersim

Chris Rogge

Chris Rogge is a Solutions Growth Lead for EV Charging and DER at Black & Veatch. Leveraging 16 years of renewable energy experience and a lifetime of automotive enthusiasm, he evaluates and recommends technical solutions to optimize project performance and cost around client objectives.
After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Policy and Urban Planning from the University of Kansas, Chris began his energy career at Cromwell Solar in 2008, becoming one of the first NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professionals in Kansas (2009-2022). Ending that role as Director of Solar after leading the development and execution of over 500 distributed solar and energy storage projects, he joined Black & Veatch in 2018 as Solar Technology Lead, establishing design and execution standards for a portfolio of 1,000+ rooftop solar sites owned by a Fortune 5 institution. During the global pandemic, Chris diversified his industry background as Senior Development Engineer for SunPower’s C&I division and Senior PM for C&I Energy Storage at FlexGen, before returning to Black & Veatch in 2022 as a Clean Transportation Solutions Architect. In his current BV role, Chris continues to advance company-wide innovation and best-practices.

Faisal Khan

Faisal Khan obtained his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (1999), Arizona State University (2003), and the University of Tennessee (2007), respectively, all in electrical engineering. He served as a senior power electronics engineer at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) from 2007–2009, Assistant Professor at the University of Utah from 2009–2014, and Associate Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, from 2015–2021. Since 2022, he has been NREL’s Chief Researcher in power electronics. He presently leads the power semiconductor module research at NREL. Faisal also serves as an affiliate professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Khan is a senior member of IEEE and an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. His research area focuses on live degradation analysis of power modules and converters, smart power module design, fabrication, characterization of power converters for emerging applications.

Florian Schröder

Florian Schröder is a distinguished leader and expert in product management at Eaton. With a solid academic background in Industrial Engineering, Florian has been an integral part of Eaton since 2008, serving in various roles with increasing levels of responsibility. Currently, Florian is the head of Product Management for command and control as well as high-performance contactors. His journey with direct current (DC) technology began early in his career, particularly with the development and introduction of the P-Sol and the Firefighter's Switch. Since 2022, Florian has been leading Eaton's DC initiative across the EMEA region and coordinating globally, bringing his wealth of knowledge and experience to the forefront of innovation in this field.

John Kisacikoglu

Mithat John Kisacikoglu leads the Electric Vehicle Grid Integration team in NREL’s Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences. His research areas include power converter development for electric vehicle (EV) charging, microgrid and smart grid integration of EVs, machine-learning-supported distributed control of power electronics, and mass-scale control and integration of distributed energy systems. He has more than 15 years of multi-disciplinary professional knowledge in power electronics, transportation electrification, and smart and microgrids.

Mark Van Wingerden

Mark Van Wingerden has 14 years of experience in lean manufacturing and product design spanning work on naval warships with the department of defense and automotive with Eaton. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Washington State University. In his time with Eaton, Mark has worked to reduce carbon emissions of commercial vehicles through Advanced Valvetrain and electrification. Mark is currently the Global Product Strategy Manager for Eaton's Power Distribution and Protection product line which includes Breaktor, EV Fuses and Power Distribution units.

Praveen Sutrave

Praveen Sutrave leads Meters and Relay Engineering at Eaton. He has led design and development of series of sophisticated and innovative energy meters and power quality analyzers, power distribution monitoring systems and cloud-based energy monitoring software in 20+ years at Eaton. Prior to Eaton, Praveen led the development of products for demand side energy management, industrial automation, and railway signaling and monitoring. Praveen holds patents in the area of power and energy metering. He holds Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communications from Osmania University, India.

Rajendra Prasad Kandula

Rajendra Prasad Kandula (Member, IEEE) received his Ph.D. degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA in 2014, in electrical engineering. He worked at a startup, Varentec, Santa Clara, as a Principal Engineer, developing power flow controllers and hybrid transformers for meshed transmission systems. He worked as a Chief Engineer at Center for Distributed Energy, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA, from 2015 to 2021. He is currently working as R&D Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He holds more than 15 US patents and more than 100 publications. His main research interests include applications of power electronics for utility applications such as power flow controllers, hybrid transformers, MVDC, fast EV chargers, grid-forming converters, etc.

Robert Douglass

Robert Douglass is Senior Chief/Principal Engineer for the Eaton Bussmann Business located in the Ellisville township of St. Louis County Missouri. He is a 40+ year practitioner of power fuse design, research and testing for both low and medium voltage fuses, as well as significant contributions for the development of power fuse switches and over voltage surge devices. Robert received his BSEE from the University of Southern Illinois and his MSEM from Washington University, St. Louis.

Victor Atlasman

Victor Atlasman, Director of Engineering and Product Development at WattEV/Charge America, leads innovative initiatives in electric vehicle charging and energy solutions. With over a decade of experience in the EV sector, Victor has been instrumental in the design and prototyping of Megawatt Charging systems, achieving the world’s first demonstration of this technology. His work focuses on advancing sustainable infrastructure by strengthening supply chains and integrating cutting-edge technologies. Victor’s leadership and technical expertise are key to driving the transition to an all-electric future, aligning with the goals of the EV market gap. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University and is actively engaged in industry standardization efforts.

Vic Shao

Vic is the founder and CEO of DC Grid Inc, and has been a serial entrepreneur in cleantech over the past 15 years. Prior to DC Grid, Vic founded Amply Power in 2018 to electrify commercial and public sector fleets, which was acquired by bp in 2021. Vic went on to lead bp's electrification efforts in the U.S across trucks, buses, and rideshare until early 2024. Prior to Amply, Vic founded Green Charge Networks, an energy storage company, which was acquired by ENGIE in 2016. Vic led ENGIE's global solar + energy storage initiative prior to founding Amply. Vic has a mechanical engineering degree from the University of VIrginia and MBA from UC Berkeley.

Vijay Bhavaraju

Vijay Bhavaraju (Senior Principal Engineer), a PhD from Texas A&M, brings decades of industrial and academic experience –32 years in the US including last 17 years with Eaton. Before Eaton, Vijay worked with Ballard Power Systems, Ford/Ecostar and Tech Power Controls. At Eaton, Vijay worked on wide variety of projects - Flow batteries, APU for hybrids, Solar and storage inverters, advanced microgrid controls, and solid state transformer for EVCI (ongoing). Vijay proposed and led several gov’t proposals in the areas of microgrids and power conversion. He championed the Eaton solar inverter designing it from grounds-up and supporting its commercialization. This led to grid-tied inverter business for Eaton. He successfully completed several gov’t programs, such as Fort Sill (Green-field microgrid), IAPS (integrated alternative power systems), and Portland General Electric’s 5MW energy storage project, which laid foundation for Eaton to actively pursue commercial opportunities in the fields of microgrids and energy storage. Vijay was selected as Eaton’s “Engineer of the year” from Eaton Research Labs in 2015. Vijay has over 20 patents and many peer reviewed publications.
Recently Vijay led a team and completed a microgrid for a critical infrastructure in an Army Base that met the cybersecurity standards RMF and was “Authorized To Operate”, ATO. Currently he is leading a DOE funded project developing a MV connected megawatt scale EV charging infrastructure and supporting several DOD and DOE projects as a senior technical advisor.