Daniel S. Kirschen was appointed Close Professor of Electrical Engineering in 2011. From 1994 to 2010, he was Professor of Electrical Energy Systems and Head of the Electrical Energy and Power Systems research group at the University of Manchester in the UK. Prior to joining the academic world, he worked for Control Data Corporation and Siemens-Empros on the development of advanced application software for electric utilities. More information

Miguel Ortega-Vazquez was appointed Research Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering of the University of Washington in 2011. From 2010 to 2011 he was Assistant Professor in the Division of Energy and Environment at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. From 2006 to 2010 he was Research Associate in the Power Systems research group at the University of Manchester in the UK. More information

Hrvoje Pandzic started his post doctoral research at the University of Washington in May 2012. He is a researcher at the project Energy Positioning: Control and Economics. Hrvoje received his Masters and PhD degrees with the University of Zagreb in 2007 and 2011, respectively. His fields of interest include power system analysis, planning and maintenance, as well as optimization techniques. He is a member of IEEE.

Yishen joined the REAL lab in Fall 2011 as a Ph.D. student. He received his B.Eng degree in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University. His undergraduate thesis focused on the analysis of different management modes of pumped storage units for the local grid and wind integration. His current research interests are using wind forecast to characterize the wind uncertainty considering various correlations and its application in integration studies. Yishen likes to find nice restaurants in the local area, and introduce them to his friends. In his spare time, he loves to spend his time in the sport field. Soccer and basketball are his favorite. In addition, he also enjoys relaxing with novels and movies.

Yury Dvorkin received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Moscow Power Engineering Institute (National Research University), Moscow, Russia, in 2010. Yury started his doctoral education at the University of Washington in 2010 and was with the Sensors, Energy, And Automation Lab until he joined Professor Kirschen in June 2011. Currently he is a Ph.D. Candidate and a Research Assistant at the REAL lab. Yury's research interests revolve around power system economics and flexibility. In his research Yury aims to optimally schedule resources in order to improve overall power system performance, which is currently being challenged by constantly growing uncertainties.

Ting Qiu joined the REAL lab in Fall 2011 as a Ph.D. student. She received her M.Sc. degree in System Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University. Her master research focused on the modeling and solving of economic dispatch problem in power systems with integral constrains. Currently, she is working on the project Energy Positioning: Control and Economics. Her research interests include security constrained unit commitment, energy storage system sizing and sitting in power system.

Ahlmahz Negash is originally from Los Angeles and grew up in Adelanto, California. She first majored in chemistry and graduated from Victor Valley College in 1996. She returned to college, after a 10-year teaching career, and is currently a PhD Candidate in the Electrical Engineering Department at UW. Her research interests include renewable energy, integration of distributed generation, and the application of high performance computing to power system studies. She is currently collaborating with Alstom Grid on a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) project. Ahlmahz is an active member the University of Washington Women's Initiative (UWWI) and student coordinator for Promoting Equity in Engineering Relationships (PEERs). She is also listed as a resource person for students applying for the NSF GRFP who need help with essays or the application process in general. Ahlmahz loves traveling, reading, eating chocolate, petting cats, and singing out loud and off-key (when nobody is watching, of course).

Mushfiq Sarker received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. He began his doctoral education at the University of Washington in Autumn of 2012 for the Renewable Energy Analysis Lab. In his spare time, he enjoys playing soccer and lacrosse. In addition, he enjoys watching movies.

Zeyu joined the REAL lab in Fall 2012 as a Ph.D. candidate . He received his B.Eng degree in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University. His undergraduate thesis focused on generation expansion planning considering uncertainties and variabilities of wind power integration. His current research focuses on Distributed Generation Resources(DERs) in distribution level, their integration to distribution networks and economic benefits that DERs will provide. Zeyu loves sports. His hobbies range from cycling, jogging, swimming to team sports like basketball and soccer.

Chuangxin Guo visited the REAL lab from August 2012 to October 2012. He is a professor with the College of Electrical Engineering at Zhejiang University (ZJU). He obtained the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology(HUST), Wuhan, China, in 1992, 1994 and 1997, respectively. Prior to join ZJU, he worked as the Director of Beijing Dongfang Electronics Research Institute and the Deputy Chief Engineer of Dongfang Electronics Co., Ltd. His research interests include smart grid, intelligent information processing technology and its application in power system.

Yunfeng Wen joined the REAL lab in November 2012 as a visiting Ph.D student. He received his B. S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sichuan University (SCU) in Chengdu, China in 2010. He is currently pursuing his Doctor's Degree in Electrical Engineering with the College of Electrical Engineering at Zhejiang University (ZJU), Hangzhou, China. His research interests include power system risk -based dispatch and optimal power flow with large-scale storages.

Ryan Elliott received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in 2009 and 2012 respectively. He performed research in the Renewable Energy Analysis Lab in 2012 on the security-constrained optimal power flow problem. His work focused on understanding non-classical methods for decomposing locational marginal prices.

After attaining his M.S. degree, Ryan went on to pursue a career in the Energy Storage and Transmission Analysis Group at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work at Sandia ranges from studying the technical and economic viability of energy storage deployments to analyzing the impact of increasing renewable energy penetration through transient stability analysis. More information

In his free time Ryan enjoys cooking, reading for pleasure, and listening to jazz (particularly in concert).

Tsz-Kin (Marco) Au received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in 2010. He joined the Computational Intelligence Applications (CIA) Laboratory in his senior year as an undergraduate researcher, focused on wind energy integration. In 2010, Marco started his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, focused on power system and renewable energy. His master thesis focused on the impact of plug-in electric vehicles to the distribution networks. Marco was one of the course developers for the Northwest Workforce Training on Smart Grid Program. In addition, Marco was a teaching assistant for some power system courses and was nominated to the Teaching Award of the College of Engineering (2010, 2011) and the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award of the Electrical Engineering Department (2012). Marco likes soccer, hiking, camping, photography and traveling. He also likes to work on fun project with K-12 students who are interested in science and engineering. More information