Meet our current dissertators!

Dissertators are PhD students who have completed their preliminary exams – – the last big hurdle before their final defenses. These students have completed all of their required coursework and can fully concentrate on completing their research projects, working towards graduating soon.

WEMPEC Student winner at Wisconsin Energy Institute’s Energy Research Showcase

WEMPEC student Maitreyee Marathe was one of five UW-Madison College of Engineering students to win an award for the Flash Talk session at the Energy Research Showcase hosted by the Wisconsin Energy Institute on February 17th, 2023. Marathe’s project, Optimal Energy Rationing for Prepaid Electricity Customers, “considers forecasts of future use and knowledge of appliance power ratings to help customers prioritize and limit use of low-priority appliances, with the goal of extending access to their critical appliances.”

Master of Science in Electrical & Computer Engineering: Professional Program Takes Off

The MS-Professional, or MS-P, program is a UW coursework-only curriculum with a 12-16 month completion timeline. It is designed to deepen students’ technical knowledge and sharpen their professional skills for industry. Students who choose the Electric Machines and Drives or Power Electronics program tracks not only enroll in courses offered by WEMPEC faculty, but they also have the opportunity to opt-in to become part of the WEMPEC community. As the first MS-P students who joined WEMPEC are graduating, read about the program and the students’ experiences in school and internships.

WEMPEC Faculty Affiliates Spotlight

Over the past year, WEMPEC has formalized its collaborative research relationships with numerous University of Wisconsin faculty members with the WEMPEC Faculty Affiliates program. We feel that our students will benefit from the opportunity to engage with the other faculty members and their research teams, and we know that our industry members will benefit from the added breadth in our technology domain. We are excited to introduce our Faculty Affiliates in the December newsletter.

Visiting Scholars at WEMPEC

WEMPEC is thrilled to introduce this year’s Visiting Scholars, who are finally able to join us on campus again, and in the NASA project, OSU and WEMPEC have completed integration testing of the 1MW integrated modular motor drive (IMMD) for electric aircraft propulsion in Madison.

With NASA funding, multi-university team aims to get electric planes off the ground

In fall 2022, UW-Madison PhD student James Swanke spent several weeks at the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) facility near Sandusky, Ohio, performing the final tests on a one- megawatt electric aircraft propulsion motor. His extended visit was the culmination of a five-year multi-university research project, a capstone of Swanke’s PhD research and a promising step forward in the field of electrified aviation.