Ali Riza Ekti

Bio

Ali Riza Ekti is a Senior R&D Staff Member and the Group Leader of the Grid Communications and Security Research Group at ORNL. He joined the Grid Communications and Security Research Group at the Electrification and Energy Infrastructures Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Knoxville, TN, USA, as a Senior R&D Staff Member. Starting May 1, 2025, he also serves as the Group Leader of the Grid Communications and Security Research Group. Since December 1, 2022, he has held a joint appointment as an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee–Bredesen Center. His current research interests include statistical signal processing, smart grid anomaly detection and classification, wireless sensor networks, wireless propagation channel modeling, optimization, and machine learning in 5G and beyond systems and the smart grid.

Ali Riza Ekti (Senior Member, IEEE) is from Tarsus, Türkiye. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Texas A&M University. He worked as an Assistant Professor with the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Balikesir University and held the Group Leader positions for Speech and Natural Language Processing Lab. and Communication and Signal Processing Research Laboratory (HISAR) Lab., TÜBİTAK BİLGEM, where he was responsible for research and development activities in the wireless communications and signal processing.

Professional Experience

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, U.S.A.                              May 2025 – Present
  Grid Communications and Security Group (Group Leader)
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, U.S.A.                              January 2022 – Present
  Grid Communications and Security Group (Senior R&D Staff Member)
• University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, U.S.A.                                            December 2022 – Present
  Cross–Cutting Energy Sciences (Joint Associate Professor)
• TUBITAK BILGEM National Research Center, Gebze, Turkey                     February 2017 – December 2021
  Communication and Signal Processing Research Laboratory (Group Leader)
• TUBITAK BILGEM National Research Center, Gebze, Turkey                     March 2018 – March 2021
  Speech and Natural Language Processing Lab. (Group Leader)

Education

• Ph.D., Electrical Engineering - Texas A&M University (TAMU), College Station, TX                08/2010 – 08/2015
  Dissertation: Heterogeneous Wireless Networks: Traffic Offloading, Resource Allocation and Coverage Analysis
• M.Sc, Electrical Engineering - University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, FL                          08/2008 – 12/2009
• B.Sc, Electrical and Electronics Engineering - Mersin University (MU), Mersin, TR                09/2002 – 06/2006

Professional Service

• IEEE Senior Member
• Editor, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters

Publications