On June 19, 2014, Dr Leon M. Tolbert made a presentation to EE students with the topic of CURENT’s Reconfigurable Grid Emulator and Power Electronics Research at the University of Tennessee.
He firstly gave an introduction to the NSF/DOE Engineering Research Center headquartered at the University of Tennessee called CURENT (Center for Ultrawide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Network). An overview of the power electronics research at The University of Tennessee was afterward given to the audience which involved the following topics: multilevel converters, and application and use of GaN and SiC power devices.
Dr Leon M. Tolbert joined the University of Tennessee in 1999 and is presently the Min H. Kao Professor and Department Head in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also a part time senior research engineer at ORNL and conducts joint research in the Power Electronics and Electric Machinery Research Center. He does research in the areas of electric power conversion for renewable energy sources, multilevel converters, hybrid electric vehicles, and application of wide bandgap (SiC and GaN) power electronics.
Dr. Tolbert is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Tennessee and a Fellow of IEEE. He was elected as a member-at-large to the IEEE Power Electronics Society Advisory Committee for 2010-2012, and has served as the Chair of the PELS Membership Committee and Education Committee. He was an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics from 2007 to 2012. He is the Transactions Review Chair for the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications for the Industrial Power Converter Committee.
