Biography

Education

• Visiting Scholar in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research:  (September 2015 – February 2016)
         University of California,  Berkeley

• Ph.D in Electrical Engineering:  (January 2014 – December 2015)
         Columbia University
         Advisor:  Prof. Javad Lavaei
         Thesis:  Distributed and Large-Scale Optimization

• M.S. in Electrical Engineering:  (August 2012 – December 2013)
         Columbia University

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering:  (August 2006 – June 2011)
         United Arab Emirates University,  Abu Dhabi,  UAE

Work and Research Experience

• United Arab Emirates University,  Abu Dhabi,  UAE,  (Since February 2016)
         Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department

• United Arab Emirates University,  Abu Dhabi,  UAE,  (December 2011 – February 2016)
         Teaching Assistant in the Electrical Engineering Department

• NASA Ames Research Center,  Moffett Field,  California,  (June 2011 – August 2011)
         Visiting Scientist in the Intelligent Systems Division
         Mentor:  Scott Poll
         Co-Mentor:  Dr. Bhaskar Saha

• Dubai Electricity and Water Authority,  Dubai,  UAE,  (June 2010 – August 2010)
         Summer Trainee in the Transmission Maintenance Department

• Technobothnia Technology Research Center,  Vaasa,  Finland,  (January 2010 – May 2010)
         Industrial Trainee in the Electricity, Energy and Automation Technology Lab
         Mentor:  Dr. Smail Menani

Awards and Honors

• UAE Embassy and UAE University Scholarship,  (December 2011 - February 2016)

• UAE NASA Research Fellow,  (Junuary 2011 - Present)

• Middle East Oil and Gas Show, Manama, Bahrain, (September 2011)
         1st place in case study competition

• Int. Conf. on Sustainable Systems and Environment, Sharjah, UAE, (March 2011)
         3rd place in students posters competition

• Electrical Engineering Society Football Cup, Abu Dhabi, UAE, (December 2010)
         Silver Medal

• Community Service Competition in IEEE UAE Student Day, Abu Dhabi, UAE, (May 2010)
         1st place

• National Physics Olympiad, Dubai, UAE, (2004, 2005, 2006)
         Ranked 1st in Dubai Qualifications

• National Geology Olympiad, Dubai, UAE, (2006)
         Ranked 2nd nationwide

Talks

• IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), December 2015, Osaka, Japan

  • Talk 1: A Fast Distributed Algorithm for Decomposable Semidefinite Programs

  • Talk 2: ADMM for Sparse Semidefinite Programming with Applications to Optimal Power Flow Problem

  • Talk 3: Transformation of Optimal Centralized Controllers Into Near-Global Static Distributed Controllers

  • Talk 4: Inverse Function Theorem for Polynomial Equations using Semidefinite Programming

• Modeling and Optimization: Theory and Applications (MOPTA), July 2015, Pennsylvania

  • “A Fast Distributed Algorithm for Sparse Semidefinite Programs”

• International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP), July 2015, Pennsylvania

  • “Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers for Sparse Semidefinite Programs”

Session Chair

• Co-chair of the session “Computational Methods II” in IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 2015 (Osaka, Japan)

• Co-chair of the session “Optimization II” in IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 2015 (Osaka, Japan)

Reviewer

• IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid

• IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology

• IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution

• Systems Science and Control Engineering An Open Access Journal

• IEEE Conference on Decision and Control

• European Control Conference

• American Control Conference

• IEEE International Conference on Electric Power and Energy Conversion Systems

Mentoring Experience

• Sai Karthik Reddy Ginni, Columbia University (Master student), Spring 2015

• Saaketh Krosuri, High school student, Summer 2014

Leadership Experience

• Columbia University Renewable Energy Society (CURES), School Liaison for the EE Dept., (2013)

• Young Future Energy Leaders (YFEL), member, program by MASDAR Institute of Science and Technology, (2012)

• UAE NASA Research Fellows Alumni Organization, President of Brand and Image, (2011 – Present)

• IEEE UAE University Student Branch, Publicity (2010), Vice Chair (2009), Technical Support (2007)

Professional Affiliations:

1. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

   1. Power and Energy Society (PES)

   2. Control and Systems Society (CSS)

2. The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).