Personnel

Young Sun Baek

Youngsun Baek is a research staff of the Power and Energy Systems Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2011. She also has a BS in Environmental Science and Engineering from Ewha Woman's University and a MA in Economics from Seoul National University, South Korea. She has worked on energy and environmental policy analysis and energy market modeling and forecasting for last three years. Her current research interests are renewable energy and energy efficiency policy, transmission load forecasting, and electricity market and its consumer behavior.

Aleksandar (Aleks) D. Dimitrovski

Aleksandar (Aleks) Dimitrovski received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in power engineering from the University Sts. Cyril & Methodius, Macedonia and M.Sc. in applied computer sciences from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. Before joining ORNL he was with Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Washington State University in Pullman WA. Before coming to the US he was a tenured assistant professor at the University Sts. Cyril & Methodius. His subjects of interest include advanced computing techniques in power system analysis and simulation.

Jose (Joe) R. Gracia

Mr. Gracia provides senior-level technical leadership in the ORNL Electricity Delivery R&D portfolio.  Technology areas include Power System Operations & Controls, Power System Visualization, Integration of Distributed Energy Resources, Robust Control Systems, Cyber Security, Energy Storage, and Power Electronics. Mr. Gracia serves as a researcher in the Power & Energy Systems Group.

Prior to joining the ORNL team, Mr. Gracia led a $155 million, four-year initiative at TVA that secured the control system, developed customized user interfaces for advanced power system management, and upgraded the telecommunications system.  It also deployed revenue-quality metering at all power generating stations, interchange facilities, and key customer delivery points. Mr. Gracia served in leadership positions in design, project management, construction, maintenance & restoration, and grid operations, and as the Senior Advisor to the Executive VP of Power System Operations.

Mr. Gracia is a founding member of the Transmission Owners and Operators Forum, a NERC-certified Power System Operator, a licensed Professional Engineer, and a Senior Member of the IEEE.  He graduated with electrical engineering degrees from the University of Florida (with honors) and Virginia Tech and an MBA from Emory University.

Stanton W. Hadley
Stanton W. Hadley has a BS and MS degree in Nuclear Engineering and an MS in Engineering Management from the University of Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri S&T). He has over twenty-five years of experience in the energy industry, including power plant emissions testing and planning for the uranium enrichment enterprise. His studies have included renewable and conventional generation, demand-side management, electricity restructuring, uranium enrichment, greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency in buildings, distributed generation, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and lightweight vehicle manufacturing.

Hadley has developed a set of computer models (ORFIN and ORCED) for evaluating electric industry finances and regional electricity systems. He has used the National Energy Modeling System for a number of studies, including the 5-Lab Clean Energy Futures Study, the potential for energy efficiency in various regions and states, and the impact of climate change on heating and cooling needs. He is also the ORNL program manager for the Department of Homeland Security’s Site Assist Visit program reducing vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure.

Omer Onar

Omer Onar received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Yildiz Technical University, Turkey, in 2004 and 2006 respectively and his Ph.D. degree from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in July 2010; all in electrical engineering. He is author/co-author of more than 35 publications including journals, conference proceedings, and books. His research interests cover power electronics, energy harvesting/scavenging, renewable energies including solar, wind, and ocean energy conversion systems, grid interconnection of renewable energy sources, power management for sustainable energy systems, and electric/ hybrid electric/plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Dr. Onar is a member of IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES), Vehicular Technology Society (VTS), Industrial Electronics Society (IES), and Power Electronics Society (PELS), and the Power Sources Manufacturer’s Association (PSMA). He is the recipient of the 2008-2009 IEEE-Vehicular Technology Society’s Transportation Electronics Fellowship and the 2009 Joseph J. Suozzi INTELEC® Fellowship in Power Electronics from the IEEE Power Electronics Society. In July 2010, he was awarded the Alvin M. Weinberg Fellowship of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he joined the Power and Energy Systems Group. 

Travis M. Smith

Travis M. Smith (SM’91) is an Electric Power Systems Research Engineer in the Energy and Transportation Science Division at ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). He has over 19 years of experience in power systems and electrical system modeling. He has worked for a number of utilities (Tennessee Valley Authority, Georgia Power, and Southern Company) and has also worked as a consultant. He has a professional engineering license in the state of Tennessee with active capabilities in multiple jurisdictions as a NCEES record holder. Travis is also a NSPE, NCEES, and Senior IEEE member. Research focuses include simulation and modeling, substation design, protection, and identification of power system issues such as harmonics and flicker.

Isabelle B. Snyder

Education: Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble in Grenoble, France; Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies, Electrical Engineering, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Hydraulique d’Electronique d’Electrotechnique et Informatique de Toulouse; B.S., Electrical Engineering from Ecole Supérieure des Ingénieurs de Beyrouth, Beirut, Lebanon.
Expertise: Power system anaylsis, Power system simulation and modeling, Electric metering design

Isabelle works as a power system research engineer at ORNL in the Power and Energy Systems Group, Energy and Transportation Science Division

Previously Isabelle worked on the Power Systems Engineering team for EnerNex, where she worked on wind turbines plant studies, underground cables modeling, and power system modeling and system impact studies.

Prior to Enernex, Isabelle was employed as a Design Engineer for Itron where she worked on the electrical metering design for single phase and polyphase metering applications.

Michael Starke received his Ph.D degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Tennessee in August 2009. He graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee in May 2004 and August 2006, respectively. His areas of research interest include integration of renewables, buildings, and the grid.

John P. Stovall

Mr. Stovall has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rose Hulman Institute of Technology and an MS in Power System Engineering from the Ohio State University. He started his career at Public Service Company of Indiana, applying analytical techniques to generation and transmission system planning, power plant environmental monitoring, and corporate financial modeling. His interest include: applying visualization techniques to create a real-time, wide-area situational awareness, testing high-temperature low-sag conductors, designing and testing high-temperature superconducting cable, examining benefits and costs of superconducting magnetic energy storage systems, analyzing and demonstrating six-phase transmission, comparing costs and benefits of ac and dc transmission, evaluating distribution system designs with renewable energy generation systems, analyzing power system reliability, demonstrating demand-side management of residential heating and cooling, developing and applying computer modeling for power system planning simulations.

Fangxing (Fran) Li
Fangxing Li received his BSEE and MSEE degrees both from Southeast University in China in 1994 and 1997, respectively, and then his Ph.D. degree from Virginia Tech in 2001. He was an Assistant Professor at The University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, TN, USA, from August 2005 to July 2011. He has been an Associate Professor at UT since August 2011. He has also been working at ORNL as an adjunct research staff since 2005.

Prior to joining UT and ORNL, he worked at ABB, Raleigh, NC, as a senior and then a principal R&D engineer for 4 and a half years. His current interests include distributed energy resources, reactive power, renewable energy integration, and power system economics. Dr. Li is a senior member of IEEE, an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, the Secretary of IEEE PES Power System Planning and Implementation (PSPI) committee, and a registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the state of North Carolina.

Yilu Liu

Dr. Yilu Liu received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong Univeristy, China. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University.

She holds the Governor's Chair in Power Systems at The University of Tennessee and is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is also an adjunt research staff at ORNL.

She was a professor at Virginia Tech from 1990 until 2009 and Former director of their Power Engineering Laboratory. She is a Fellow of the IEEE. Her current interests include power system wide are monitoring and control, FACTS and energy storage applications, transformer diagnosis, power quality and transients, IT applications in power.

Velma A. Williams

Velma Williams earned her B.S. degree in Education from Prairie View A & M University, and an M.S. degree in Education from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.  After retiring from teaching children (28 years), she worked in ORNL’s Human Resources pool as a part-time Administrative Assistant.  Mrs. Williams joined the Power & Energy Group in 2010. Her major interest is in providing diligent secretarial support utilizing “Best Practices” to promote seamless job performance of team members.

Sarina Adhikari

Sarina Adhikari is a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at The University of Tennessee. She received her B.E (Electrical Engineering) from Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Pulchowk, Lalitpur, Nepal in 2002 and her M.E. in Electrical Power Systems Management from Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand, in 2005. She worked as a Research Associate in Energy Field of Study, Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand after completing her Masters degree.
E-mail: sadhikar@utk.edu

Lakshmi Reddy Gopi Reddy

Lakshmi Reddy Gopi Reddy is a Ph.D student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the University of Tennessee. She received an M.S. in electrical engineering from The University of Tennessee in August 2007. Her M.S. thesis is titled, "Evaluation of Losses in HID Electronic Ballast Using Silicon Carbide MOSFETs." She completed her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from G.R.I.E.T., India in May 2005.
E-mail: lgopired@utk.edu

Philip Irminger

Philip Irminger began working with the Power and Energy Group in June, 2008.  He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee in December of 2009.  He is currently working on his Masters at the University of Tennessee. He also was part of the University of Tennessee hardware team which placed 2nd at the 2009 SoutheastCon in Atlanta, Georgia.  His research focus is in power systems.

Mithat Can Kisacikoglu

Mithat Can Kisacikoglu is a senior Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at The University of Tennessee. He received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2005, and his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama in 2007. 

His special research interests are in the area of power electronic circuit design for electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He is currently working on designing a bidirectional battery charger for advanced grid support. He is also interested in designing and controlling renewable energy interface systems. These include PV, wind, and residential fuel cell applications. 

Mithat has been working as a student researcher at ORNL since May 2008.

E-mail: mkisacik@utk.edu

Marcus Aaron Young II
Marcus Aaron Yong II is a post-master at ORNL. He received his M.S. degree and B.S. degree in electrical engineering at The University of Tennessee in 2005 and 2002, respectively. He has worked as an engineer at EPRI in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has worked as an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in their superconducting program.

Ben W. McConnell

Resume
Benjamin (Ben) W. McConnell was a principal investigator for the Power Systems Program for Electric Energy Systems at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has more than 44 years of experience (total) in varied research and development (R&D) efforts, including more than 28 years in project management, 21 years in computer modeling, and 9 years in nuclear safety. He has conducted vulnerability-related R&D projects, including assessments of nuclear safety, computer code development, nuclear reactor analysis and design, electric energy load management, electric distribution, and nuclear weapons effects. Dr. McConnell is the author of more than 50 publications, including journal articles, conference papers, and reports.

Earlier at Carolina Power and Light Company, Dr. McConnell developed and coordinated an effective energy research program by conducting and supervising in-house energy research and by contributing to the efforts and formation of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). He later served on the EPRI Nuclear Safety Task Force. He led efforts to perform various power plant safety studies, including a black start and loss of off-site power assessment.

Dr. McConnell has also worked at the Savannah River Laboratory where he developed production and safety analysis programs and conducted several reactor fuel loadings and designs.

Dr. McConnell received a Ph.D. and M.S. in physics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and a B.S. in physics/mathematics from East Tennessee State University.

Ben McConnell retired from ORNL in March 2011.

John D. Kueck
John Kueck earned a BS in Physics from Purdue University and an MS in Electrical Engineering - Power Systems, from Ohio State University. Over the first 20 years of his career, Mr. Kueck worked in the design and operation of fossil fuel and nuclear generating stations. From 1992 to 2010, Mr. Kueck had been a researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His major interest was the local supply of reactive power from distributed energy resources as a reliability service.

He retired from ORNL in December 2010.

Chaitanya A. Baone
Chaitanya Baone was an intern with the Power and Energy Systems Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2009.  He is a graduate student in the Electrical Engineering department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He received the B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from the Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, India in 2006.  Prior to joining UW-Madison, he worked as an engineer at ABB, India Ltd.  His research interests include power system analysis and optimization.