Vassilis Kekatos

Electrical & Computer Engnr. Dept., Virginia Tech

1185 Perry STR
428 Whittemore Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Tel: (540) 231-1672
Email: lastname@vt.edu

Panorama from San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, CA, by Gregg M. Erickson.

I am an associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. I am with the Power and Energy Center (PEC), and my focus is on algorithmic solutions for problems related to learning and optimization for smarter energy systems.

[CV], [Google Scholar], [Linkedin]

News

  • 03/2023: Manish received the Blackwell Award (second place) for the Best Ph.D. Thesis in our ECE Department for 2022. Congratulations Manish!
  • 03/2023: Excited to present an inviting talk at the 2023 Conf. on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS) organized by Johns Hopkins University.
  • 12/2022: Sarthak defended his PhD. Neat works on deep neural networks (DNNs) trained to learn stochastic optimal power flow (OPF) policies, DNNs as digital twins of Volt/VAR dynamics, and quantum approaches for tackling stochastic binary quadratic programs with constraints. Excellent works and spotless delivery! Congratulations Sarthak!
  • 12/2022: Mathirush defended his MSc on reactive power compensation to deal with voltage imbalance in distribution grids. Congratulations Matty!
  • 11-12/2022: Presenting seminar talks at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in Copenhagen; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich; Mitsubishi Electric Company (MELCO) in Yokohama, Japan; and the National Technical University of Athens. Excited to present our new works on deep learning for the optimal design of Volt/VAR control curves.
  • 10/2022: I will be organizing three panel sessions at the 2023 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting on machine learning and quantum computing for power systems.
  • 09/2022: Our paper with Shaohui and Hao on finding impulse responses between pairs of grid buses under ambient conditions using synchrophasor data has been accepted to be presented at the HICCS conference.
  • 09/2022: Excited to spend my research leave (sabbatical) with the power systems group at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), hosted by Spyros Chatzivasileiadis.
  • 08/2022: Our NSF grant proposal Power Systems Dynamics from Real-Time Data: Modeling, Inference, and Stability-Aware Optimization has been awarded. This is a collaborative project with Hao Zhu from the Un. of Texas at Austin. Looking forward to working with Hao and our research groups on this project. Thank you NSF.
  • 07/2022: Four new members would be joining our group. Excited to work with all of you. Welcome Jinlei, Ashutossh, Thinh, and Mamzi!
  • 07/2022: Attending the 2022 IEEE PES General Meeting in Denver, Colorado.
  • 07/2022: I will be giving an invited talk at the 2022 Autonomous Energy Systems Workshop at NREL.
  • 06/2022: Mana defended her PhD thesis. Congratulations Mana!
  • 06/2022: Attending the Power Systems Computations Conference, in Porto, Portugal.
  • 06/2022: We have received a seed funding grant from the Commonwealth Cybersecurity Initiative (Southwest Virginia node) on quantum-based solutions to power systems problems. We are happy to have Dr. Jamie Sikora from the CS Department of VT participating in this. Thanks to CCI for the support!
  • 03/2022: Presented seminar on Machine Learning for Optimizing Power Systems at the ECE Colloquium at the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington, VA.
  • 02/2022: Two papers have been accepted to the Power Systems Computations Conference, Porto, Portugal, in June 2022. The first paper is a DNN-based formulation of a chance-constrained AC-OPF. The second paper is a novel OPF formulation that is cognizant of low-frequency inter-area oscillations. Congratulations to Sarthak and Manish!
  • 12/2021: Sina defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations Sina!
  • 12/2021: Mana passed her preliminary exam. Congratulations Mana!
  • 11/2021: We are delighted to host Ilgiz Murzakhanov, a visiting PhD student from the Technical University of Denmark. Ilgiz will be staying with us throughout the Spring 2022 semester. Welcome Ilgiz!
  • 10/2021: Our team was ranked eighth in the Grid Optimization competition (Challenge 2) organized by ARPA-E of the Department of Energy. Our code ranked first during the Trial 2 event. It also ranked first over the industry datasets for two divisions of the final event. It has been a great learning experience! Many thanks to my teammates Hafez Bazrafshan and Sarthak Gupta for the great work!
  • 07/2021: Invited talk at the 'Physics-Informed ML for Power Systems' panel during the IEEE PES General Meeting.
  • 06/2021: Manish defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations Manish!
  • 06/2021: I was promoted to associate professor with tenure.
  • 04/2021: Invited talk at the enOPTIMAL seminar organized by the Energy Initiative and LIDS of MIT. [recording]
  • 03/2021: Invited talk at the Conf. on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS) organized this year by John Hopkins University.
  • 03/2021: Invited talk at the IEEE Boston Chapter.
  • 01/2021: Invited talk at the Winter School and Conference on Grid Science organized by Los Alamos National Laboratory.
  • 01/2021: Invited talk at the IEEE Greece Section.
  • 11/2020: Sarthak and Manish are presenting our works at the IEEE Smart Grid Communications Conference, Tempe AZ.
  • 11/2020: Presenting two talks at the INFORMS Annual Meeting 2020, and organizing two panel sessions: i) 'Data-driven Optimization in Large-Scale Energy Grids'; and ii) 'Machine Learning for Energy Systems'.
  • 08/2020: Organizing two panel sessions during the 2020 IEEE PES General Meeting: i) 'Learning to Optimize Power Transmission Systems', co-chaired with Lang Tong; and ii) 'Learning to Model, Monitor, and Control Power Distribution Systems', co-chaired with Nanpeng Yu. Many interesting works and great presentations are lined up for both panels.
  • 07/2020: Our NSF-EPCN grant proposal Machine Learning for Communication-Cognizant Smart Inverter Control with Ming Jin has been awarded. Looking forward to working with Ming and our research groups on this project. Thank you NSF.
  • 06/2020: Excited to be teaching the senior-level course ECE 4984: Electric Energy Distribution Systems in Fall 2020.
  • 03/2020: Delivered the talk 'Operating and Planning for Distribution Grids with Renewables' at the power systems seminar of the ECE Dept., Iowa State University (converted to webinar due to the COVID-19 outbreak).
  • 03/2020: Participated in the NSF workshop "Forging Connections between Machine Learning, Data Science, & Power Systems Research".
  • 10/2019: Our research group has two invited papers at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, in Seattle, WA: Mana's work on kernel-based smart inverter control and Manish's work on natural gas modeling.
  • 10/2019: Presented tutorial 'Learning for Monitoring and Control in Power Distribution Grids' during the webinar series organized by the IEEE Big Data Analytics subcommittee.
  • 09/2019: Mana defended her MSc thesis. Congratulations Mana!
  • 08/2019: Attended the IEEE PES General Meeting in Atlanta, GA. Presented at panel on research and educational activities under NSF CAREER awards. Sina and Manish presented their works on energy storage sizing and grid restoration.
  • 08/2019: Presented seminar on 'Learning for Monitoring and Control in Power Distribution Grids', University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
  • 08/2019: Presented seminar on 'Natural Gas Network Modeling and Investment Planning', NextEra Analytics, Saint Paul, MN.
  • 07/2019: Attended and presented our work on an MILP formulation for grid topology identification using inverter probing at IEEE PowerTech, Milan, Italy.
  • 07/2019: Our NSF-DMS-AMPS grant proposal Model Reduction for Analysis, Identification, and Optimal Design of Power Networks led by Serkan Gugercin has been awarded. Excited to work with Serkan, Chris, and Mark from the Mathematics Department at VT.
  • 05/2019: Presented tutorial 'Inverter Probing for Learning Power Distribution Grids' at the IEEE Intl. Conf. on Smart Grid Synchronized Measurements and Analytics (SGSMA), Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.
  • 05/2019: Delivered talk 'System restoration and topology identification in power distribution grids' at the power systems seminar of ECE Dept, University of Texas at Austin.
  • 05/2019: Sid defended his PhD thesis and will be joining Siemens. Congratulations Sid!
  • 05/2019: Sina defended his MSc thesis. Congratulations Sina!
  • 03/2019: Invited talk at the 2019 Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS) on 'Solvers of Natural Gas and Water Flow Problems'.
  • 12/2018: Manish defended his MSc thesis. Congratulations Manish!
  • 10/2018: Delivered talk 'Inverter Probing for Learning Power Distribution Grids' at the power systems seminar of ECE Dept, University of Washington.
  • 03/2018: The NSF-EPCN-CAREER grant proposal Probe-to-Learn Power Distribution Networks has been awarded.