Oak Ridge National Laboratory
12/17/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 12/17/2024 11:58
Ferrari honored as IEEE senior member
December 17, 2024
ORNL microgrids researcher Maximiliano Ferrari works with an emulator in the networked microgrids laboratory at the Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center, or GRID-C. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Maximiliano Ferrari, a researcher in the Grid Systems Architecture group at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elevated to prestigious senior membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE.
Senior status is awarded to only 10% of institute members. This highest level of membership is reserved for those who have made a significant contribution to the engineering field over at least a decade.
Ferrari specializes in research related to the control and system protection of microgrids that can operate with a power source and energy storage independent of the larger electric grid. He has led software and hardware development and field demonstrations of microgrid technologies and platforms. Notable among these is a high-profile collaboration with international nonprofits and universities for development and installation of networked microgrids with novel controls in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. His research contributes to increased access to electricity for communities through microgrid resiliency.
Ferrari earned bachelor's degrees in electronic engineering from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia and in physics from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania before pursuing his master's in electronic systems engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain. He joined ORNL as a researcher in 2019 and shortly afterward earned his doctorate in energy science and engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
In the private sector, Ferrari has worked as an energy consultant and pursued such diverse projects as developing prototype converters for electric bike charging stations and designing energy efficiency strategies for a Ford assembly plant.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.