Short biography: Atsuo Kawamura (Life Fellow, IEEE) received the B.S.E.E., M.S.E.E., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1976, 1978, and 1981, respectively. After the five-year-stay at the University of Missouri-Columbia as a faculty member, he joined Yokohama National UniversityYNU) in 1986, and in 1996 he became a professor. He served as a dean of College of Engineering Science and Graduate School of Engineering from 2013 to 2015. He has become Professor Emeritus in 2019, and was a professor of endowed chair (Power Electronics) at YNU till 2024, and now belongs to Institue of Multidiciplinary Science of YNU. He has served to completion of 38 Ph.D and 147 Master’s and 179 Bacheler’s students. He holds 7 patents and has published more than 140 journal papers and 320 international and 580 domestic conference papers, and 9 books. (h-index(Google) is 47.) His research interests include power electronics, digital control, electric vehicles, robotics, train traction control, etc. He received several awards including several Transactions Prize Paper Awards from IEEE and IEEJ. Dr. Kawamura is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan(IEE of Japan).

Short biography: Xiaodong Liang received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in 2013. She is currently a full Professor and Canada Research Chair in Technology Solutions for Energy Security in Remote, Northern, and Indigenous Communities at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. She was previously a lecturer at Northeastern University, Shenyang, China from 1995 to 1999, a Power Systems Engineer with Schlumberger (SLB) in Edmonton, Canada from 2001 to 2013 (promoted to Principal Power Systems Engineer in 2009), an Assistant Professor and later an Associate Professor with Washington State University in Vancouver, United States and Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada from 2013 to 2019. Her research interests include power systems, renewable energy, and electric machines. In these research areas, she has authored/co-authored more than 230 refereed journal and conference papers, four book chapters, and numerous research reports. She is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, the Chair of the Power System Engineering Committee of IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS), and a Fellow of IET.

Short biography: Michael Negnevitsky is Chair in Power Engineering and Computational Intelligence and Director of the Centre for Renewable Energy and Power Systems, University of Tasmania, Australia. The primary focus of his research is smart grids, power system security, demand response, and isolated and remote area power systems with high renewable energy penetration. Professor Negnevitsky authorised more than 500 research publications and received 4 patents for inventions. He is Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of Engineers Australia. Professor Negnevitsky is Chair of the IEEE PES Working Group on High Renewable Energy Penetration in Remote and Isolated Power Systems, Chair of the IEEE PES Working Group on Asian and Australasian Infrastructure – Smart Grids with Large Penetration of Renewable Energy, Member of CIGRE AP C4 (System Technical Performance) and CIGRE AP C6 (Distribution Systems and Dispersed Generation), Australian Technical Committee.

More speakers to be announced...