ECE Awards Roundup: Nov. 7, 2014

November 7, 2014

Arthur Montazeri.
Arthur Montazeri.

Arthur Montazeri A Winner Yet Again

The Weston Fellowship Award was only the beginning for Arthur Montazeri, a PhD candidate working with the Advanced Photovoltaics and Devices (APD) Group under the supervision of Professor Nazir Kherani. Montazeri who is currently pursuing his research in the field of infrared and medical imaging at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, was announced as winner of the inaugural $10,000 Tyler Lewis Clean Energy Research Foundation grant on October 31.

“I consider myself fortunate to retain the expertise and backing of the APD group,” says Montazeri. “That has helped to drive this project to its current internationally acclaimed stage.”

The Tyler Lewis Clean Energy Research Foundation was established by Lewis’s parents to fund alternative energy and applied sustainability research initiatives. The foundation awards a grant of $10,000 annually to an innovative project in the field of clean energy research.

Best Paper Awards: Yahyaie & Ranjram

Two graduate students supervised by Professor Peter Lehn brought home best paper awards recently.

Farhad Yahyaie received the best student paper award at CIGRE Canada for his paper titled “Application Of Experimentally Measured Frequency Coupling Matrices For Improved Harmonic Estimation.” CIGRE Canada’s 9th Conference was held in Toronto from September 22 to 24, 2014. The conference is a premier forum for the exchange of technical knowledge and ideas between Canadian and international delegates in the area of power systems.

Mike Ranjram’s paper entitled “A High Step-Up Transformerless DC/DC Converter with Flat Efficiency” has received a distinguished appraisal from the IEEE IECON’s steering committee, as Ranjram came back with best presentation recognition. The IEEE IECON 40th annual conference was held in Dallas, Texas, from October 29 to November 1, 2014. This conference provides an ideal environment for technical exchange and networking, and emphasizes the applied nature of industrial electronics and informatics over a wide range of industries.

Women in Computing Conference: Pirathayini Srikantha

PhD candidate Pirathayini Srikantha was recognized as a best poster award recipient at the Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing conference, on October 24 and 25, 2014 at the University of Guelph. The work proposed an approach to power dispatch of distributed energy resources via bifurcation control.

Srikantha said that being able to explain her research on energy systems in a conference on computing was challenging, but she was highly encouraged by her supervisor, Professor Deepa Kundur. “Professor Kundur is an amazing mentor,” says Srikantha “she always boosts us with positive energy.”

The Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing (ONCWIC) invites students involved in computing at all levels of study, faculty, as well as professionals to discuss active research or computing projects, and share of ideas, problems and results in an informal setting.

More information:
Mireille Khreich
Communications Assistant
The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
416-978-1999; mireille.khreich@utoronto.ca