2025 Power Picnic a Success
9/12/2025
Power Area News/Jeremy Sykes
The annual Power Picnic, held by the Power and Energy Systems area for over 25 years, was held at the Crystal Lake Park Pavilion on September 12th. The event, a ritual initiating the start of the new academic year in the Power and Energy Systems area was a happy and warm occasion in the mid-September sun. The event was hosted by the power and energy systems area faculty. Read More.
Superconducting Motor Could Propel Electric Aircraft: Prototype unit from startup Hinetics uses a high-temperature superconductor
6/26/2025
IEEE Spectrum/Glenn Zorpette
Of the countless technologies invented over the past half century, high-temperature superconductors are among the most promising and yet also the most frustrating. Decades of research has yielded an assortment of materials that superconduct at temperatures as high as -140 °C (133 kelvins) at ambient pressure. And yet commercial applications have been elusive. Read More.
Grainger Power Engineering Awards Program Celebrates 29th year
Power Area News/Jeremy Sykes
The Grainger College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) met to celebrate the 29th Annual Grainger Power Engineering Award Program, at the Grainger Engineering Library. The awards were established through the generous support of The Grainger Foundation to recognize both the importance of the power engineering field and the academic performance of the graduates. Read More.
Chapman, Eberhard, Krames newest National Academy of Engineering members
ECE Newsroom/Laura Schmitt
Three individuals with ties to the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Illinois—former professor Patrick Chapman and alumni Martin Eberhard and Michael Krames—are among the 128 engineers elected this year to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Election to NAE is one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Read More.
Banerjee-led team developing low-cost power engineering lab kits for use around the world
ECE Newsroom/Jenny Applequist
With support from the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS), Arijit Banerjee has been leading an effort to design and create affordable, hands-on experimentation kits for college-level power electronics courses. The beta-version kits are already a hit with his U. of I. students, but Banerjee and his collaborators have ambitious plans that go far beyond the campus level: the kits are intended to be replicated and shared with resource-constrained educational institutions around the globe. Read More.
In memoriam: David Grainger
Grainger MarComm/Kate Worster
David Grainger, senior chairman of W.W. Grainger, Inc., passed away on January 9, 2025, at the age of 97. Mr. Grainger also served as president and then chairman of The Grainger Foundation, a charitable non-profit organization established by the Grainger Family. Read More.
Illini Solar Car shines in American Solar Challenge
Grainger MarComm/Eleanor Wyllie
Students at The Grainger College of Engineering are proven pioneers in sustainable transport. The multidisciplinary Illini Solar Car team raced their newest model, Calypso, at the 2024 American Solar Challenge this July. The team placed fourth place in their class, with the third highest distance traveled — 1566 miles. Read More.
POETS testbed to be expanded under FAA low-emission aviation technologies grant
Grainger MarComm/Jenny Applequist
For almost a decade, the Center for Power Optimization for Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS) has pursued innovations in electric powertrains for transportation systems ranging from cars and trains to ships and small aircraft. Now, a $2.7 million award from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Fueling Aviation’s Sustainable Transition (FAST) program will upgrade the POETS testbed to enable testing of larger aircraft power and propulsion systems than it can currently handle. Read More.
Why it’s Hard to Compare Electricity Use Between Electric Cars and Household Appliances
Kristin Hugo/PolitiFact
President Joe Biden has called for 50% of all cars sold in the United States to be electric by 2030. The Inflation Reduction Act aims to help that goal by including a $7,500 tax credit to encourage Americans to buy electric cars. Read More.
People Keep Dying Rigging Microwave Transformers Into DIY Wood-Burning Machines
6/27/2022
Caroline Delber/Popular Mechanics
In an alarming video published last week, food scientist and YouTube personality Ann Reardon discusses a dangerous craft hack called “fractal wood burning,” which creates striking designs in a slab of wood that look a bit like lightning strikes. Read More.
Dominguez-Garcia’s New Textbook Addresses Uncertainty in Complex Engineered Systems
5/20/2022
Laura Schmitt
ECE Professor Alejandro Dominguez-Garcia has authored a new textbook for researchers interested in understanding the impact that uncertainty has on large-scale engineered systems like the electric power grid. Read More.
ORE Catapult and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Join Forces on Floating Wind Challenges
2/22/2022
The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult is set to bring UK expertise to the development of the US floating offshore wind sector through a collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Read More.
Enough Power for EVs?
2/4/2022
Tom Kacich/The News-Gazette
“With the rush to move to all electric vehicles, have the electric power generation companies been consulted? With all of the coal fired power plants being phased out, and no new nuclear plants coming online, will wind and solar be able to pick up the load? Worst case is we are building another bottle-neck that could raise utility rates for all of us, and make electric vehicles much more expensive.”
“It is a little hard to call it a ‘rush,'” said Phil Krein, a professor emeritus at the Grainger Center for Electric Machinery and Electromechanics at the University of Illinois. Read More.
Haran named as new POETS director
2/1/2022
MechSE
Professor Kiruba Haran has been named the new director of the Center for Power Optimization of Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS) in The Grainger College of Engineering. Read More.
Zhang Earns NSF CAREER Award to Develop Novel Power System Optimization Techniques
1/19/2022
Laura Schmitt
With more than 7,700 power plants, 3,300 utilities, and 2.7 million miles of transmission lines, the U.S. power grid is an extraordinarily complex system that constantly balances the supply and demand of electricity nationwide. Read More.
Students Experiment with ECEB Solar Panels to Understand Challenges of Solar Energy
1/7/2022
Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE students extracted power for the first time from the ECEB Solar Panels as a part of their Power Electronics Laboratory (ECE 469) experience. One of the unique features of the ECE Building is the easy accessibility to its roof-top solar panels that can be used for research and teaching. This year ECE 469 was revamped to include experiments with these solar panels. Read More.
Sauer Wins 2022 IEEE Tesla Award
8/1/2021
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE Research Professor Peter Sauer, Grainger Chair Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, was recently awarded the 2022 IEEE Tesla Award “for contributions to dynamic modeling and simulation of synchronous generators and for leadership in power engineering education.” Read More.
Banerjee Receives 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award
6/29/21
Illinois ECE Assistant Professor Arijit Banerjee was selected to receive a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. This is an unrestricted gift of $15,000/year and may be renewed up to two additional years (for a total of $45,000) or until tenure is achieved. Read More.
ECE Faculty Receive 2021 Jump ARCHES Grants
4/19/21
Seven research projects are sharing slightly more than $400,000 in funding through the Jump ARCHES research and development program to address challenges and expand on lessons learned about COVID-19 vaccinations and testing. The Jump ARCHES program is a partnership between OSF HealthCare and the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I) and its College of Medicine in Peoria. Illinois ECE Assistant Professors Subhonmesh Bose and Suma Pallathadka Bhat are two of the recipients of the Jump ARCHES grant. Read More.
Arijit Banerjee on Engaging Students During the Pandemic
4/12/21
Matthew Novelli
Assistant Professor Arijit Banerjee agreed to sit down and demonstrate the remote-teaching setup that he’s been using during the pandemic. Read More.
Sauer Receives IEEE Power & Energy Society Lifetime Achievement Award
8/1/2021
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Peter Sauer, Grainger Chair Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, was recently awarded the 2020 IEEE Power & Energy Society Lifetime Achievement Award for his exceptional career-long contributions to power systems modeling and dynamic analysis, and for leadership in power engineering education. Read More.
Banerjee and Song Elected NAI Senior Members
8/13/2020
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE Assistant Professors Arijit Banerjee and Pengfei Song were both elected to the rank of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Senior Members for the August 2020 class. Read More.
Illinois ECE Faculty Among Team Awarded $5.4M to Accelerate Artificial Intelligence Research to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic
7/1/2020
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the University of Illinois, along with fellow consortium members of the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI) recently awarded $5.4 million to accelerate artificial intelligence research to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Illinois ECE Professor Tamer Başar, Assistant Professor Subhonmesh Bose, and Research Professor Narendra Ahuja, Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus in Electrical and Computer Engineering, were among the recipients of these awards. Read More.
Banerjee Receives NSF CAREER Award for Work Emulating a Biological Spine in Robots
1/25/2020
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE Assistant Professor Arijit Banerjee recently won the NSF CAREER award for his work with bio-inspired design methods for distributed electromechanical actuators to emulate a biological spine. This prestigious award supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Read More.