Mohammad Shahidehpour, Ph.D.

Dr. Mohammad Shahidehpour is the Bodine Distinguished Professor and Chair in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). He has been a faculty member at IIT for the last 27 years where he received the IIT’s Excellence in Teaching Award, as well as the Edison Electric Institute's Power Engineering Educator Award, and the C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Young Electrical Engineering Professor Award. At IIT, he has also served as the Associate Provost for Research, Dean of the Graduate College, and Associate Dean of Engineering for Research and Graduate Studies. He is also an honorary professor in the North China Electric Power University (Beijing) and the Sharif University of Technology (Tehran).

As Chair of the ECE Department for the last four years, Dr. Shahidehpour increased significantly the faculty research and scholarship. He raised $8 million of philanthropic support for graduate and undergraduate laboratory renovation and ECE student scholarships, hired 15 new faculty members with added support from new research faculty of the highest quality, created and filled four chaired professor positions for ECE faculty, increased the number of ECE Ph.D. students by 40 percent to 100, tripled the annual research funding in ECE to a total of $7 million, doubled the number of ECE research laboratories, introduced five new degree programs in emerging technologies, sustained the growth in the master’s degree programs, and raised the department ranking among peer universities.

Dr. Shahidehpour is an expert in power system optimization and control with specific interests in the modeling of microgrids and sustainable energy applications. He is currently the principal investigator (PI) of $25 million research grants on smart grid and sustainable energy. His “Perfect Power” project which is funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) will convert the IIT’s Main Campus to a smart grid center with a 20% reduction in its base load consumption and 50% reduction in the peak load consumption. As part of his “Wind Consortium” project which is also funded by DOE, he will facilitate the installation of a wind unit at IIT and contribute significantly to the next generation of wind turbine technology in the United States. He is also the PI for a “Wind Integration” project which will investigate the optimal locations in and the impact of large-scale wind integration on the U.S. Eastern Interconnection. 

Dr. Shahidehpour has supervised 85 visiting faculty as well as doctoral and master’s degree students. He is the co-author of over 320 technical papers and six books on electric power systems planning, operation, and control. He is the 2009 recipient of the honorary doctorate form the Polytechnic University of Bucharest and three best paper awards for his publications in IEEE Transaction on Power Systems. For his contributions to power system research and development, he was awarded the IEEE T. Burke Hayes Faculty Recognition Award and the Sigma Xi Outstanding Senior Faculty Research Award. He is a Fellow of IEEE for his contributions to security-constrained unit commitment algorithms in power system operation and control.

Dr. Shahidehpour serves on the Governing Board of the IEEE Power and Energy Society as VP of Publications and is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transaction on Smart Grid. He also served as an editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems for 13 years and the Guest Editor of IEEE Journals (seven times). He has been a member of the Editorial Board of 11 journals, and the organizing committee of several international conferences including the Technical Program Chair of the 2010 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies. He served as the Chair of the IEEE Power System Operation Committee and received the Distinguished Service Award for serving on its Executive Committee for eight years. He is also the recipient of six recognition awards for chairing and completing the mandated tasks of several IEEE/PES working groups.  Dr. Shahidehpour is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer and has delivered over 60 lectures across the globe on electricity restructuring and smart grid issues. He has been a keynote speaker in six International Conferences since 2007.    

Dr. Shahidehpour is the past president of National Electrical Engineering Honor Society (HKN), served on its executive committee for eight years, and received several awards for his contributions to the Society.