Dr. Fei "Fred" Wang

Areas of Interest

• Power Electronics
• Power Systems
• Motor Drives
• Electric Machines

Education

• B.S., Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, 1982
• M.S., University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1985
• Ph.D., University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1990

Background
Dr. Fred Wang holds the Condra Chair of Excellence in Power Electronics and is a Professor in Electrical Engineering at The University of Tennessee. He also has a joint appointment with Oak Ridge National Lab. His conducting research on: design, modeling, control, and integration of advanced power electronics converters; motor drives; power electronics application to transportation and renewable power systems.

Dr. Wang received his B.S.E.E. from Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China in 1982. In 1985 and 1990, he received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, respectively, in Electrical Engineering from University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, California. He worked as a research scientist at USC's electric power lab from 1990 to 1992. His study and research at USC included power system transients and insulation coordination, power equipment diagnosis, and electromagnetic field effects and shielding.

Dr. Wang joined GE Power Systems Engineering in Schenectady, New York as an Application Engineer in 1992. From 1992-1994, he was involved in numerous projects including TCSC and other FACTS applications, SMES, HVDC, railway electrification, steel mill VAR and harmonic compensation. After a short stint as a marketing engineer in China for GE Power Systems, Dr. Wang became a senior development engineer at GE Drive Systems, Salem, VA in 1994. From 1994-2000, he participated and made key contributions in the development of GE’s cycloconverter main drive, and the world's first three-level NPC MW medium voltage drives - Innovation Series HVIGBT and IGCT PWM drives. He was a main developer of the synchronous machine drive control algorithm. He developed the grid-interface control, robust modulation and neutral-point control, motor shaft voltage and bearing current mitigation, and converter protection schemes for the three-level PWM drives. In 2000, he joined GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, New York as a program manager, responsible for establishing the Electrical Systems Technology Program in Shanghai, China. Today GE China Technology Center has become a premier power electronics R&D organization in China.

Dr. Wang joined the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), Virginia Tech in 2001 as a research associate professor and became an Associate Professor in 2004. Since 2003, he has also served as the CPES Technical Director. At CPES, Dr. Wang’s research focuses on high power electronic converters and systems for industrial motor drives, more electric airplanes, all electric ships, oil and gas, and renewable and distributed energy systems. He has led or participated in more than 30 projects totaling $11M. His sponsors included NSF, ONR, ARL, DOE, DARPA, Boeing, GE, Rolls-Royce, Thales, SAFRAN, Schneider, Aker Kvaerner, MKS, and ABB. At Virginia Tech, he advised 7 Ph.D and 5 M.S. students to completion, and authored or coauthored about 100 technical papers.

Dr. Wang actively participates in IEEE activities and is a member of Power Electronics, Power Engineering, Industrial Applications and Industrial Electronics Societies. He is an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He has received two prize paper awards from IEEE IAS. He also received Dushman award in 1998, the highest award for best team technical work in GE.