News & Events

09-04-19

EDF Renewables North America has acquired PowerFlex Systems, a pioneer in managed electric vehicle (EV) charging technology. PowerFlex’s patented technology was incubated out of Steven Low’s NetLab research laboratory. PowerFlex and EDF Renewables agree on the vision of large-scale EV adoption that will achieve meaningful reductions of carbon emissions in the transportation sector. [Read full article]

Tags: CMS Steven Low

06-12-19

Meera Krishnamoorthy, a senior in electrical engineering, has received a National Physical Science Consortium (NPSC) Fellowship that will fund up to six years of graduate training. Krishnamoorthy will be enrolling in a computer science PhD program at the University of Michigan, studying artificial intelligence and machine-learning applications for health care, such as turning complex medical data into actionable knowledge that ultimately improves patient care. "Engineering is a great way to solve problems in multiple disciplines," she says. Krishnamoorthy's interest in machine learning was sparked by coursework and a research project she worked with Professor Yisong Yue, and her academic advisor has been Professor Steven Low. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE honors CMS alumni Steven Low Yisong Yue Meera Krishnamoorthy

06-07-17

Changhong Zhao, advised by Professor Steven Low is a winner of this year’s Charles Wilts Prize, for his doctoral thesis "Real-Time Load-Side Control of Electric Power Systems." The Charles Wilts Prize is awarded every year to a graduate student in Electrical Engineering for outstanding independent research.

Tags: EE honors CMS Wilts Prize Steven Low Changhong Zhao

05-22-17

Electrical Engineering student Ashwin Balakrishna, advised by Professor Steven Low is a recipient of the 2017 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. He enjoys interdisciplinary research with a focus on intelligent systems. He has been using machine learning to improve sensor based systems in different contexts including medical diagnostics, electrical vehicle charging, and earthquake detection. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: EE Henry Ford II Scholar Award Steven Low Ashwin Balakrishna hon

05-09-17

Electrical engineering student Avinash Agrawal, working with Professors Burdick and Low, is a recipient of the 2017 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Avinash is aiming to produce robot visualizations and simulations for a spherical robot. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to the engineering student with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: EE honors Henry Ford II Scholar Award Steven Low Joel Burdick Avinash Agrawal

06-09-16

The student winners of the 2016 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes were announced at a special dinner with the Demetriades - Tsafka – Kokkalis family. Rachel P. Galimidi received the prize in Biotechnology for her work with Professor Pamela Bjorkman aimed to further understand the mechanism of HIV evasion of the humoral immune response. Junle Jiang was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Nadia Lapusta which used probabilistic inversion tools to understand the deep-ocean trench generated tsunamis that occurred during the subduction-zone earthquakes in Japan and Chile. Yinglu Tang working with Dr. Jeff Snyder received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for her work on thermoelectric skutterudites for mid-temperature applications such as automotive waste heat recovery. The second winner in this category was Changhong Zhao who worked with Professor Steven Low to study the control and optimization of modern electric power systems. The winner of the prize in Nanotechnology was Gustavo Rios whose research involves development of a modular, scalable, nanofabricated neural probe system for dense 3-D electrophysiology to study animal brains. Rio’s graduate advisor was Professor Thanos Siapas. The prize in Entrepreneurship was given to Anton A. Toutov who was advised by Professor Robert Grubbs. His research interests lie in using fundamental chemistry to development radically new, sustainable ways to make everyday chemical products and generate clean energy.

Tags: APhMS EE honors MedE MCE CMS Jeff Snyder Nadia Lapusta Steven Low Robert Grubbs CNS Junle Jiang Rachel P. Galimidi Pamela Bjorkman Yinglu Tang Changhong Zhao Gustavo Rios Thanos Siapas Anton Toutov

04-24-16

Charging electric vehicles (EVs) can require a substantial amount of electricity (most EVs charge at 7 kilowatts, the equivalent of simultaneously running 70 desktop computers). Steven Low, Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, has developed Caltech's adaptive charging network, which uses a smart algorithm to coordinate the charging schedule with the Institute's existing electrical infrastructure. This program helps minimize energy usage and about 30 percent of the electricity at each charging station is from carbon-free renewable sources. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE energy research highlights CMS Steven Low

12-17-15

Caltech’s smart grid team led by Professors John Doyle, Steven Low, and Adam Wierman along with their collaborators have been awarded $3.9 million for an Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) Network Optimized Distributed Energy System (NODES) project entitled "Real-time Optimization and Control of Next-Generation Distribution Infrastructure."  NODES is ARPA-E’s new program focused on enabling more than 50% usage of renewable power on the grid. The Caltech team will develop a comprehensive distribution network management framework that unifies real-time voltage and frequency control at the home/distributed energy resource controllers’ level with network-wide energy management at the utility/aggregator level. [Learn more]

Tags: EE energy CMS Adam Wierman John Doyle Steven Low

10-22-15

Steven Low, Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, and alumnus Javad Lavaei (PhD ’11 CDS) have received a Power System Analysis Computing and Economics (PSACE) Technical Committee Prize Paper Award for their paper “Zero Duality Gap in Optimal Power Flow Problem.” PSACE is a Technical Committee of the IEEE Power and Energy Society. [Read the paper]

Tags: EE honors CMS Steven Low Javad Lavaei

10-19-15

The power network of the future—also known as the smart grid—will have to be much more dynamic and responsive than the current electric grid, handling tremendous loads while incorporating intermittent energy production from renewable resources such as wind and solar, all while ensuring that when you or I flip a switch at home or work, the power still comes on without fail. An interdisciplinary group of engineers, economists, mathematicians, and computer scientists, including Professors Steven Low and Adam Wierman are working to develop the devices, systems, theories, and algorithms to help guide this historic transformation and make sure that it is properly managed. [Caltech feature]

Tags: EE research highlights CMS Adam Wierman Steven Low