Ph.D. Dissertation Winners

Dr. Armin Aligholian is a Data Scientist II at Recurve Inc. where he specializes in methodologies for Electric Vehicle detection, solar PV generation disaggregation, and energy forecasting and M&V derived from electricity meter data. Prior to that, he got his PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of California Riverside, in which his main research area includes power distribution system time series analysis, anomaly and event detection/clustering with deep learning models and optimization techniques.

Dr. Alireza Akrami received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2014, the M.Sc. degree in power systems engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 2018, and the Ph.D degree in electrical engineering from University of California Riverside, US, in 2022. His research interests include state estimation, power system optimization, smart grid initiatives, and applications of machine learning in power systems. He received Deans Distinguished Fellowship Award from the University of California Riverside. He was a recipient of MPCE journal best paper award in the year 2019, He was selected among the 2019 Best Reviewers of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID. His paper entitled “Joint Sparse Estimation of Sensitivity Distribution Factors and Power Flows in Low-Observable Power Distribution Systems” was selected as a Best Paper Award Finalist at the IEEE PES ISGT 2023 Conference in Washington, DC.

Dr. Atul Singh (IEEE Member) received the M.Tech. degree in Mechatronics Engineering, and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Patna, India in 2016 and 2023 respectively. He has also worked as a visiting researcher with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi UAE. His research interests include design of measuring devices utilized for wide area monitoring of power system, synchrophasor application in microgrids, and controller design. Currently, he is working with the Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Trento, Italy as a research fellow. 

Dr. Milad Izadi is a power systems engineer at Electric Power Engineers, LLC. Dr. Izadi initiated the new topic of Synchro-Waveforms (also known as time-synchronized waveform measurements) in 2019. Since then, he has made pioneering contributions towards using synchro-waveforms for power systems applications, resulting in 8 publications so far, including 1 US patent, 3 journal papers, 1 book chapter, and 3 conference papers, along with several presentations and invited talks. One of his publications on synchro-waveforms is currently ranked as the most cited article in the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. Dr. Izadi invented a new graphical tool, synchronized Lissajous curve, to detect and classify events in power systems. He was granted the first U.S. patent on the topic of synchro-waveforms. He recently received the Best PhD Dissertation Award on the topic of Synchro-Waveforms from the Smart Grid Synchronized Measurements and Analytics Conference in 2024. He received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2017 and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Riverside, CA, USA, in 2022.