Prof Michael Pecht is a world renowned expert in reliability and risk assessment. Prof Pecht has a BS in Physics, an MS in Electrical Engineering and an MS and PhD in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a Professional Engineer, an IEEE Fellow, an ASME Fellow, an SAE Fellow and an IMAPS Fellow. He is the editor-in-chief of IEEE Access, and served as chief editor of the IEEE Transactions on Reliability for nine years, and chief editor for Microelectronics Reliability for sixteen years. He has also served on three U.S. National Academy of Science studies, two US Congressional investigations in automotive safety, and as an expert to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He is the founder and Director of CALCE (Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering) at the University of Maryland, which is funded by over 150 of the world's leading electronics companies at more than US$6M/year. The CALCE Center received the NSF Innovation Award in 2009 and the National Defense Industries Association Award. He is currently a Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering and a Professor in Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computation at the University of Maryland. He has written more than twenty books on product reliability, development, use and supply chain management. He has also written a series of books of the electronics industry in China, Korea, Japan and India. He has written over 700 technical articles and has 8 patents. He consults for 22 international companies. In 2015 he was awarded the IEEE Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Award for visionary leadership in the development of physics-of-failure-based and prognostics-based approaches to electronic packaging reliability. He was also awarded the Chinese Academy of Sciences President's International Fellowship. In 2013, he was awarded the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Engineering Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2011, he received the University of Maryland's Innovation Award for his new concepts in risk management. In 2010, he received the IEEE Exceptional Technical Achievement Award for his innovations in the area of prognostics and systems health management. In 2008, he was awarded the highest reliability honor, the IEEE Reliability Society's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has previously received the European Micro and Nano-Reliability Award for outstanding contributions to reliability research, 3M Research Award for electronics reliability analysis, and the IMAPS William D. Ashman Memorial Achievement Award for his contributions in reliability assessment methods for electronics products and systems.

Saman Halgamuge, Fellow of the IEEE, is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the School of Electrical, Mechanical and Infrastructure Engineering of University of Melbourne, an honorary Professor of Australian National University (ANU) and an honorary Member of ANU Energy Change Institute. He was previously the Director/Head of Research School of Engineering of Australian National University (2016-18), Professor, Associate Dean International , Associate Professor and Reader and Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne (1997-2016). He graduated with Dipl.-Ing and PhD degrees in Data Engineering ("Datentechnik") from Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany and B.Sc. Engineering from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He is an Associate Editor of BMC Bioinformatics, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II and Applied Mathematics (Hindawi). His research that led to 260 publications has been funded over the last 22 years by Australian Research Council (16 grants), National Health and Medical Research Council (2 grants), industry and other external organisations (13 grants or contracts) and funding to support stipends for about 50 PhD students. His research contributions are in AI and Data engineering, which includes Data Analytics based on Unsupervised and Near Unsupervised Learning and Optimization focusing on applications in Mechatronics, Energy, Biology and Medicine. His publication profile is at http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&user=9cafqywAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

Speech Title: Low cost Grid Usage Achieved through Optimization, Forecasting and Energy Storage
Abstract: Energy sector in most countries is undergoing a complex transition not only due to access to increasingly affordable solar technologies but also due to the increased ability to predict how electricity will be used by consumers, which then can be used to optimize the usage of non-dispatchable energy. In Australia, there are remote areas where grid electricity is not available and cost prohibitive. Therefore, fully renewable off grid opportunities for buildings will be a practical and sustainable solution for energy crisis and challenges.
There has also been an increased interest in cost and energy efficiency for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems for buildings since these are responsible for between 25% and 40% of total building energy demand. Solar assisted ground source heat pump systems which combine solar and geothermal energy are gaining attention due to their higher efficiency and greater functional diversity when compared with conventional systems. Some of the recent work on minimizing the operational cost of a solar assisted ground source heat pump system, considering time-of-use electricity price (peak, off peak) will be discussed.
The work presented includes [1-4] completed by PhD students and industry partners. . Acknowledgement: Australia-Indonesia Centre Strategic Research Grant, ARC Research Grant LP160101486, IBM Research Lab Melbourne, CSIRO/Data61, Resources provided by the Australian National University and University of Melbourne.
[1] H. Weeratunge, G. Narsilio, J. de Hoog, S. Dunstall and S. Halgamuge, Model predictive control for a solar assisted ground source heat pump system Energy, Elsevier, 2018
[2] K Abdulla, J De Hoog, K Steer, A Wirth, S Halgamuge, "Multi-resolution Dynamic Programming for the Receding Horizon Control of Energy Storage",IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 2017
[3] K Abdulla, K Steer, A Wirth, S Halgamuge, "Improving the on-line control of energy storage via forecast error metric customization", Journal of Energy Storage 8 (November), 51–59, 2016
[4] K Abdulla, J De Hoog, V Muenzel, F Suits, K Steer, A Wirth, S Halgamuge, "Optimal Operation of Energy Storage Systems Considering Forecasts and Battery Degradation", IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2016
 

Muhammad H. Rashid is employed by the University of West Florida as a Professor (and Past Director from 1997-2007) of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Rashid received B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Birmingham in UK. Previously, he worked as Professor of Electrical Engineering and the Chair of the Engineering Department at Indiana University- Purdue University at Fort Wayne. Also, he worked as Visiting Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Connecticut, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), Professor of Electrical Engineering at Purdue University Calumet, and Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering at King Fahd university of Petroleum and Minerals (Saudi Arabia), as a design and development engineer with Brush Electrical Machines Ltd. (England, UK), a Research Engineer with Lucas Group Research Centre (England, UK), a Lecturer and Head of Control Engineering Department at the Higher Institute of Electronics (Malta).
Dr. Rashid is actively involved in teaching, researching, and lecturing in power electronics. He has published 17 books and more than 130 technical papers. His books are adopted as textbooks all over the world. His book, Power electronics has translations in Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Korean, Italian, Chinese, Persian, and Indian edition. His book, Microelectronics has translations in Spanish in Mexico and in Spain, Italian, and Chinese.
He has had many invitations from foreign governments and agencies to give keynote lectures and consult, by foreign universities to serve as an external examiner for undergraduate, master's and Ph.D. examinations, by funding agencies to review research proposals, and by U.S. and foreign universities to evaluate promotion cases for professorship. Dr. Rashid has worked as a regular employee or consultant in Canada, Korea, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malta, Libya, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Dr. Rashid has traveled to almost all States in USA and many countries to lecture and present papers (Japan, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Libya, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Malta, Italy, Greece, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Mexico).
He was a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario (Canada), and a registered Chartered Engineer (UK). He is a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE, UK) and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, USA). He was elected as an IEEE Fellow with the citation "Leadership in power electronics education and contributions to the analysis and design methodologies of solid-state power converters." Dr. Rashid is the recipient of the 1991 Outstanding Engineer Award from The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received the 2002 IEEE Educational Activity Award (EAB) Meritorious Achievement Award in Continuing Education with the following citation "for contributions to the design and delivery of continuing education in power electronics and computer-aided-simulation". He is the recipient of the 2008 IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award with citation: For his distinguished leadership and dedication to quality undergraduate electrical engineering education, motivating students and publication of outstanding textbooks
Dr. Rashid is an ABET program evaluator for electrical and computer engineering (and also from 1995-2000) and an engineering evaluator for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS, USA). He is the Series Editors of Power Electronics and Applications, and Nanotechnology and Applications with the CRC Press. He serves as the Editorial Advisor of Electric Power and Energy with Elsevier Publishing. He lectures and conducts workshops on Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and its implementations including assessments. He is a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Education Society and a Regional Speaker (previously Distinguished Lecture) for the IEEE Industrial Applications Society.
 

Paulo Sérgio Duque de Brito has a degree in chemical engineering, Processes and Industry specialization, in the Technical Superior Institute; has a master's degree in "Corrosion Science and Engineering" by UMIST, Manchester University; is a PhD in Chemical Engineering, by the Superior Technical Institute in the electrochemical – on fuel cells. He has also an MBA – Master of Business and Administration. Currently, he is a Coordinator Teacher in the Superior School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (IPP), where he is also the President of the Technologies and Design Department. He is also, Institutional Coordinator for I&DT of IPP and responsible for C3i – Investigation and Innovation Interdisciplinary Coordination. The main areas he investigates are related with Bioenergy, waste environmental treatments, materials corrosion and energy galvanic production. He has published more than 150 works, in books, articles and conferences presentations.
 

Prof Zhongjie Huan obtained his bachelor degree in physics science in 1988, Master degree in engineering fluid mechanics with specialization of isotope separation in 1991, and PhD degree in engineering thermophysics in 2000.
He was employed as a researcher at the national research institute in nuclear industry, followed by the higher education sector as an associate professor and full professor at Tianjin University of Commerce in China.
South Africa is his second stop where he joined the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein as a senior research fellow in 2001, in 2010 he accepted a position of a full professor at TUT.
Prof Huan is one of the twelve members of the working party on the international code for quick frozen foodstuff processing practices managed by international Institute of Refrigeration, the board member of the World Society of Sustainable Energy Technologies, and member of the Appraisal Committee member of Quality and Technology on Refrigeration and Air Conditioning. He is also the certified energy manager and measurement and verification professional of Association of Energy Engineers (AEE).
His impressive record of supervising postgraduate students speaks for itself; he has supervised numerous students completing Masters and Doctoral studies successfully, and serves as the editorial board members and reviewers for a number of accredited international journals, furtherly, more than 120 research papers were published in accredited journals. He is also the award receiver from the Ministry of Science and Technology (China), the National Science and Technology Forum (South Africa), and the best VC researcher (TUT).
Prof Huan's field of expertise and research specialisation is energy efficiency, refrigeration and heat pump, and thermal engineering. Currently he is the leader of an accredited niche area of Applied Refrigeration and Thermal Energy Systems (ARTES).
 

Wanyang Dai is a Distinguished Professor in Mathematics Department of Nanjing University, a Special Guest Expert in Jiangsu FinTech Research Center, President of Jiangsu Probability & Statistics Society, and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Advances in Applied Mathematics, where his research includes stochastic processes related optimization and Pareto optimal control/game, admission/scheduling/routing protocols and performance analysis/optimization for BigData-Blockchain oriented cloud computing and wireless/wireline communication systems, forward/backward stochastic (ordinary/partial) differential equations and their applications to queueing systems, Internet of Things, energy and power engineering. His "influential" papers are published in "big name" journals, e.g., Operations Research, Communications in Mathematical Sciences, Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Queueing Systems, Mathematical and Computer Modeling of Dynamical Systems. His researches are awarded as outstanding papers and by academic societies, e.g., IEEE Top Conference Series. He received his Ph.D degree in applied mathematics jointly with industrial engineering and systems engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A., in 1996, where he worked on stochastics and applied probability concerning network performance modeling and analysis, algorithm design and implementation via stochastic diffusion approximation. The breakthrough results and methodologies developed in his thesis were cited, used, and claimed as "contemporaneous and independent" achievements by other subsequent breakthrough papers that were presented as "45 minute invited talk in probability and statistics" in International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 1998, which is the most privilege honor in the mathematical society. The designed finite element-Galerkin algorithm to compute the stationary distributions of reflecting Brownian motions (weak solutions of general dimensional partial differential equations) is also well-known to the related fields.
He was an MTS (permanent) in End-to-End Network Architecture Department of AT&T Bell Labs (now called Nokia Bell Labs) in U.S.A. from 1996-1999, where he was principal investigators and developers of several projects in telecommunication network architecture and design, network performance and financial engineering, operating system and database development to support various intelligent engines/models for strategy planning and BigData analytics in a "Plug-in and Play" manner, with some (nowadays called cloud computing) project won "Technology Transfer".
He is also editors of over 20 international journals ranging from pure mathematics to its applications (e.g., Wireless Engineering and Technology, Artificial Intelligence), General Chairs and plenary/keynote speakers of over 20 IEEE and international conferences, member/group leader of judge committee in mathematics for National Natural Science Awards of China. He was a visiting scholar in Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of China, a Long Term Participant of IMA Annual Program of Probability and Statistics in Complex Systems: Financial Engineering, Communication Networks and Genomics in (U.S. based) Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications (IMA), a visiting professor in Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management in Chinese University of Hong Kong.