Power Grid Expert Thorp Speaking Nov. 9

Professor James S. Thorp, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech, will be speaking at North Carolina State University (NCSU), SAS #4201 on Tuesday, November 9 at 3 p.m. The lecture is sponsored by the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) and the Department of Mathematics at NCSU.

Thorp is known for his expertise about the power grid. He and his research partner, Arun Phadke, are two of the nation’s icons in the electric power field. They were the recipients of the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering for their combined contributions of more than 60 years to this industry. Thorp is strongly involved in projects which amount to more than 50 percent of the available U.S. Department of Energy stimulus awards to modernize the electric grid system and to improve the security and reliability of the energy infrastructure.

Thorp was the editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery (Power System Relaying) from 1998-2001. He currently holds the position of Hugh P. and Ethel C. Kelly Professor Emeritus, after having served as the Department Head at Virginia Tech. Thorp will also be participating in several working groups for the Complex Networks program at SAMSI in Research Triangle Park the week of November 8-10.

People interested in seeing Thorp speak should contact Pierre Gremaud at [email protected] or Taufiquar Khan at [email protected].

About SAMSI

The Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) is a national institute that is forging a new synthesis of the statistical and applied mathematical sciences with disciplinary science to confront important data and model-driven scientific challenges. It is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. SAMSI is a partnership of the National Science Foundation with the consortium of Duke University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences.

For more information about SAMSI or about the new postdocs, go to: www.samsi.info. You can also follow us on Twitter at @NISSSAMSI.