Keynote Speakers

Francisco M. Gonzalez-Longatt is currently a full professor in electrical power engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IT and Cybernetics, University of Southeast Norway, Norway. His academic qualifications include first Class Electrical Engineering of Instituto Universitario Politécnico de la Fuerza Armada Nacional, Venezuela (1994), Master of Business Administration ( Honors ) of Universidad Bicentenaria de Aragua, Venezuela (1999), Ph.D. in Electrical Power Engineering from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (2008) and Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Professional Practice from Coventry University (2013) and Diploma in Leadership and Management (ILM Level 3), Loughborough University (2018). He is a former Lecturer in Electrical Power Systems at Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering and a member of the Center for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) ​​at Loughborough University, UK. He is a former academic staff of the Department of Aerospace, Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Coventry University where he started as Lecturer in Electrical Engineering in 2012 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Electrical Engineering in 2013. He was formerly with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester as a Postdoctoral Research Associate (2009-2011). He is a former associate professor (1995-2009) and Chair (1999-2001) of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Universidad Nacional Politécnico de la Fuerza Armada Nacional, Venezuela (1995-2009). He is Vice-President of Venezuelan Wind Energy Association, Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE), a member of The Institution of Engineering and Technology - The IET (UK), and a member of International Council on Large Electric Systems -CIGRE. He received professional recognition as an FHEA – Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in January 2014. His research interest includes innovative (operation/control) schemes to optimize the performance of future energy systems. His research is or has been supported by Royal Society, British Council, UK India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI) –UK. He has been collaborating in European research projects, including: "Integration of Offshore wind power into the Spanish Power System using HVDC", Universidad Carlos III, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain.

Prof. S. N. Singh (Fellow, IEEE) obtained his M. Tech. and Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in 1989 and 1995, respectively. He was Vice Chancellor in Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology, Gorakhpur, India. Currently, Dr. Singh is Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, and the Director, IIITM Gwalior, India. He also worked as Visiting Professor at Denmark Technical University, Denmark. Before joining IIT Kanpur as Associate Professor, Dr Singh worked with UP SEB as Assistant Engineer from 1988 to 1996, with IIT Rookree as Assistant Professor from 1996 to 2001 and with AIT, Bangkok, Thailand as Assistant Professor from 2001 to 2003. Dr Singh received several awards including Young Engineer Award 2000 of Indian National Academy of Engineering, 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 and Otto-monsted Fellowship of Denmark. His research interests include power system restructuring, FACTS, power system optimization & control, security analysis, wind power, etc. Prof Singh is a Fellow of IETE India, Fellow of IEEE, USA, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India). Prof Singh has published more than 400 papers in International/national journals/conferences. He has also written two Books on Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution and “Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering” published by PHI.

Prof. Akshay K. Rathore (Fellow, IEEE) received the M.Tech. degree in electrical machines and drives from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, Varanasi, India, in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree in power electronics from the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada, in 2008. He had two subsequent postdoctoral research appointments with the University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA. From 2010 to 2016, he was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada. He has authored or coauthored about 270 research articles in international journals and conferences, including 90 IEEE transactions. His research is mainly focused on current-fed converters and multilevel inverters. Dr. Rathore is serving as the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Awards Department Chair and an IAS Prominent Lecturer. He is the recipient of the Gold Medal during the M.Tech. degree for securing the highest academic standing among all electrical engineering specializations. He is a recipient of the 2013 IEEE IAS Andrew W. Smith Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award, the 2014 Isao Takahashi Power Electronics Award, the 2017 IEEE IES J David Irwin Early Career Award, 2020 IEEE IAS Outstanding Area Chair Award, and the 2020 IEEE Bimal Bose Award for Industrial Electronics Applications in Energy Systems. He is also the Paper Review Chair of the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Conversion Systems. He is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications and an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy. He was a Distinguished Lecturer from 2017 to 2018 and an IAS Executive Board Member-at-Large from 2017 to 2019 of the IAS Society. He chaired the IEEE IAS Industrial Automation and Control Committee from 2018 to 2019 and the IEEE IES Technical Committee on Transportation Electrification from 2016 to 2017. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Technology News (ITeN) from 2016 to 2018 and received a recognition award in 2019.

Prof. Sukumar Mishra has been a Professor with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India, since last 17 years. He has so far authored more than 70 IEEE Transactions/Journals, 30 IET Journals, and 30 other international journal papers. He has supervised 31 Ph.D. students (18 ongoing) and 38 master's students (Two ongoing). He has also authored five book chapters so far and has 13 patents to his credit.,Prof. Mishra was a recipient of the Orissa Bigyan Academy Young Scientist award (1999), INSA medal for young scientist (2002), INAE Young Engineer Award (2002), INAE Silver Jubilee Young Engineer Award (2012), The Samanta Chandra Shekhar Award (2016), Bimal Bose Award (2019), and NASI-Reliance Platinum Jubilee Award (2019). He has been selected as a Mission Innovation National Champion (2019) under the Mission innovation initiative to accelerate clean energy in India. He is a fellow of IET (U.K.), NASI (India), INAE (India), IETE (India), IE (India), and is also recognized as the INAE Industry Academic Distinguish Professor. He has started a new company named Silov Solutions Private Limited. The company specifically deals in products related to renewable energy sources utilizable at household scale as well as at commercial setups for example bidirectional electric vehicle supply equipment, ac-based EV charger, dc-based EV charger, grid-connected solar inverters, smart dc home management systems, online UPS, etc. He is currently serving as an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, and was an Area Editor for the IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution journal.

Prof. Vijay K. Sood (Fellow, IEEE) received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Bradford, England. From 1976 to 2007, he was employed as a Senior Researcher at IREQ (Research Institute of Hydro-Québec) in Montreal. Since 2007, he is an Associate Professor at Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, Canada. His research interests are in the monitoring, control, and protection of HVDC and FACTS power systems. He has published widely on HVDC and FACTS transmission systems. He is a member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario, a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, and an Emeritus Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineers.

Prof. S. A. Soman obtained a Bachelor of Engineering degree from MANIT Bhopal (formerly Maulana Azad College of Technology Bhopal) and Master of Engineering and Doctor of Philosophy both from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. Currently, he is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, India. Prof. Soman has numerous publications including patents, international journals, and conference papers. He has supervised many Ph.D. Scholars and authored a book on Computational Methods for Large Sparse Power System Analysis: An Object-Oriented Approach (Norwell, MA, USA: Kluwer, 2001). His research interests and activities include power system analysis, deregulation, power system protection, and wide-area measurement systems.

Prof. Ashok Kumar Pradhan (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sambalpur University, Sambalpur, India, in 2001. He has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, since 2002, where he is currently a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering. He served at the Department of Electrical Engineering, VSS University of Technology, Burla, India from 1992-2002. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) and National Academy of Sciences (NASI), Allahabad, India.

Prof Pradhan has a research focus in the area of Power System Protection and Monitoring. His fundamental research contributions are in the field of directional and distance relaying for power networks and vulnerability assessment of Power Systems following disturbance where he has published more than 50 IEEE Transaction papers. Currently, he has established pioneering research in the field of Wide Area Measurement technology for power systems where he has Indo-UK projects and established collaboration with UK, Canada, and US universities. In Smart Grid technology, he is also involved in AC and DC microgrid protection.

Prof. N. P. Padhy (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in power systems engineering from Anna University, Chennai, India, in 1997. He is a Professor (HAG) and 92 Batch Chair Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee, India, and the Director, MNIT Jaipur, India. Earlier, he has served as a Dean of Academic Affairs, Institute, and NEEPCO Chair Professor with IIT Roorkee. He is the National Lead of many national and international projects such as DSIDES, ID-EDGe, and HEAPD. He is also part of other international projects, namely Indo-US UI-ASSIST, and Indo-U.K. ZED-I. He has authored/co-authored more than 150 research articles in reputed international journals and conference proceedings. His research interests include power system analysis, demand-side management, energy market, network pricing, ac–dc smart grid, and application of machine learning techniques in power systems. Prof. Padhy is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineers, Fellow Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, India, Fellow Institution of Engineering and Technology, and Fellow of Institution of Engineers and India. He was the recipient of the IEEE PES Outstanding Engineers Award 2018, Boyscast Fellowship, and the Humboldt Experienced research Fellowship in the year 2005 and 2009, respectively.