Power & Energy Systems Research Group

Academic Staff

• Professor Tapan Saha
• Dr Nadarajah Mithulananthan
• Dr Ramesh Bansal
• Dr Olav Krause
• Dr Chandima Ekanayake
• Dr Hui Ma
• Dr Mehdi Eghbal
• Dr Jahangir Hossain

Emeritus Professor

• Emeritus Professor Mat Darveniza AO

Technical and Administration Staff

• Mr Shane Goodwin
• Mr Steve Wright
• Mrs Maureen Shields

Honorary Professor

• Professor Ian Hiskens

Adjunct Professors

• Dr David Allan
• Dr Ashok Manglick
• Dr Richard Harris

Honorary Research Fellow

• Dr Jim Lyall

Academic Staff
	Professor Tapan Saha - is the leader of the Power & Energy Systems Research Group.  He obtained his PhD in 1994 from the University of Queensland.  His research interests include condition monitoring of electrical equipment, power system stability and control, generation and transmission planning in a market environment and integration of renewable energy to the national grid.  He has been actively involved with CIGRE Australian panels and IEEE, Qld Section activities.  He is the immediate past Chair of the IEEE, Qld Section.  He is also a Fellow of the Engineers Australia and a senior member of the IEEE.
	Dr Nadarajah Mithulananthan - has a PhD (Electrical and Computer Engineering) from the University of Waterloo, Ontario Canada.  His main research interests are in analytical studies on electric power grids, power system interconnections, integration of renewable energy into electric power grids and future power grids.  He is attached to the Energy field of study at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) as an Associate Professor.  At AIT he supervised many masters and doctoral students and was involved in numerous projects, with a total budget of $US2million  as a principal / co-principal investigator.  Based on his research, he has published over 60 articles.  His previous professional positions include Planning Engineer at Generation Planning Division at Ceylon Electricity Board and Project Leader at the Centre of Excellence in Electric Power Technology (CEEPT) at the Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.
	Dr Ramesh Bansal - received his PhD from the Indidan Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi in May 2003 and also received a Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering (Power Systems) from the Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi University.  He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Indira Gandhi National Open University.  His research interests include reactive power control analysis, artificial intelligence techniques in power systems, analysis and control of induction generators, and renewable energy systems.  Dr Bansal joined UQ in July 2008 and is involved in teaching power generation and power / mechatronic related courses.
	Dr Olav Krause - received his PhD from the TU Dortmund University, where he worked as a Research Associate for 5 years, in 2009 on the topic "Usage potential of distribution networks".  His current research interests are the estimation of operational state of distribution networks from heterogenic measurement data and the determination of their remaining transfer capability.  Neighbouring topics are probabilistic calculus in power system analysis and distributed energy management.
	Dr Chandima Ekanayake - received his B.Sc.Eng(Hons) in 1999 from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.  He obtained his Tech. Lic. and PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in 2003 and 2006 respectively.  From 2006 to June 2008 he was attached to the department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Peradeniya, as a Senior lecturer.  In 2008 he joined UQ as a Post-Doctoral research fellow to work on an ARC funded project on improving transformer insulation diagnostics through polarisation measurements.  Currently he is a lecturer in the School of ITEE at the University of Queensland, Brisbane.  During his PhD studies he was working for a European Union project called REDIATOOL, where he engaged in research related to Diagnostics of Transformer Insulation from dielectric response measurements.  He has also carried out several dielectric response measurements at ETH, Switzerland as a part of his research work.  From 2001 he has been involved on condition monitoring of transformers installed at Ceylon Electricity Board, Sri Lanka.  He was also the Chair of IEEE, Sir Lank Section, in 2006 and 2007.  His research interests include condition monitoring of power apparatus, alternatives for insulating oil, performance studies of HV insulators and energy related studies.
	Dr Hui Ma - is a research fellow of the Power & Energy Systems Research Group.  He obtained his B.Eng and M.Eng degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China in 1991 and 1994, M.Eng (by research) degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 1998, and Ph.D. degree from the University of Adelaide, Australia in 2008. He worked in industry from 1997 to 2003. Currently his research interests include condition monitoring and diagnosis, machine learning application in power system, wireless sensor networks, and signal processing.
	Dr. Mehdi Eghbal - is a post doctoral research fellow. He received B.S. in electrical engineering from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran in 1998, M.S. degree in power system engineering in 2001 from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran and PhD degree in 2009 from Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan in the field of Artificial Complex System Engineering. Currently he is with Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence (QGECE), The University of Queensland. His research interest lies in the application of heuristic techniques in power system planning and demand response. Currently, Mehdi is the secretary of IEEE Power & Energy Society Queensland chapter.
	Dr. Jahangir Hossain - is a research fellow at the group of Power and Energy System, School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He received PhD from the University of New South Wales, Australia in December 2010. His research interests are power systems, wind generator integration, distributed systems, voltage stability, micro grids, robust control, electrical machine, FACTS devices and energy storage systems. He is a member of IEEE.

Emeritus Professor

Emeritus Professor Mat Darveniza AO, obtained his degree in 1953 from The University of Queensland. He completed his PhD at Queen Mary College (University of London) in 1959. In 1980 he was awarded DEng by The University of Queensland  and in 1990 he was awarded a Hon D.Sc Eng by Chalmers University. In 2004, the Queensland Government appointed him a Director of Energex Ltd. In 2008, he was elected to the Engineers Australia Qld Division Hall of Fame. He is a life Fellow of IEEE.

Administration Staff

Mr Shane Goodwin
Research Manager - PES
s.goodwin@uq.edu.au

Mr Steve Wright
Laboratory Supervisor - Intelligent Equipment Conditioning Monitoring Laboratory
sw@itee.uq.edu.au

Mrs Maureen Shields
Administrative Assistant - PES
m.shields@uq.edu.au 

Honorary Professors

Professor Ian Hiskens - is currently the Vennema Professor of Engineering at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  He obtained his PhD in 1991 from the University of Newcastle.  His research interests are in power system analysis, non-linear and hybrid system dynamics and control and computational techniques for inverse problems.  He is a Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of Engineers Australia and a Chartered Professional Engineer in Australia.

Adjunct Professors
	Dr David Allan - received his Doctor of Engineering (Higher Doctorate) from the University of Queensland in 1998.  Previously he obtained his Master of Engineering (1991), a Bachelor of Economics (1968) and a Bachelor of Engineering (1963) all from the University of Queensland.  Currently he is Manager, Research & Development at Powerlink QLD.  For the last several years he has been responsible for managing Powerlink's R&D program, which supports between 25 and 30 projects annually.  Prior to this role, he held a range of professional and management positions in the electricity supply industry over a career spanning 40 years.  Throughout his career he has held positions of Grid Planning Engineer, Substation Maintenance Engineer, Manager of HV and Manager of Light Current Testing Laboratories.  However the larger part of his career has been associated with the testing, condition monitoring and life assessment of electrical plants and in research into new techniques in these fields.
	Dr Ashok Manglick - received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 1984.  Previously he obtained his Bachelor and Master of Technology degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1972 and 1974 respectively.  Presently he is Group Manager, Strategic Projects in TransGrid and is responsible for managing complex multidisciplinary projects strategically significant for the business.  Until recently he was also a Founding Director and Chief Executive of the Australian Power Institute.  He has over 25 years experience in the electricity industry and has first hand experience in handling government relations.
	Dr Richard Harris - founded Fultec Pty Ltd, a data communications focused semiconductor company, in late 2001. He took this company to the USA in 2004 and established it as an international semiconductor company servicing the telecommunications industry. In late 2008 Fultec sold to Bourns Co., a US based electronics component company. The technology developed by Fultec is now marketed by Bourns throughout the world and is used by many first tier communications equipment manufacturers. Dr Harris was awarded BE Degree in 1985 and PhD in 1996 from The University of Queensland.

Honorary Research Fellow
	Dr Jim Lyall – is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Power & Energy Systems group. He retired from the Queensland University of Technology as a Senior Lecturer. His specialization is in underground cables.

Past Research Staff

• Dr Arulampalam Atputharajah (Postdoctoral  Research Fellow)
• Dr Uday Mhaskar (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
• Dr Jai Govind Singh (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
• Dr Prithwiraj Purkait (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
• Dr Manoj Pradhan (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
• Dr Abbas Zargari (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)