Women
In Engineering Panel
IEEE WiE Panel –
Mentoring and Its Impact on Recruiting and Retention
Sponsored
by: Power Engineering Society
Chair: Edina Bajrektarevic, American
Transmission Company
April 21, 2008 (3:00 – 5:00 pm), McCormick Place North, Room N136
This panel will take a
candid look at mentoring and its impacts on recruiting and retaining
engineering talent in workplaces and academics. Special attention will
be given to the mentoring and recruiting of women and under-represented
groups within engineering. Panelists will discuss the benefits and
requirements of successful mentoring programs, both formal and
informal. The panel will also focus on describing efforts at the
industry and academic levels to address the national challenge of the
aging power engineering workforce. All are welcome.
PANELISTS:
EDINA
BAJREKTAREVIC, American Transmission Co.
Edina
Bajrektarevic is Operations Engineer at
the American Transmission Co. Edina provides support to system
operation of the high-voltage electric transmission system that serves
customers from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the
Wisconsin-Illinois border in USA. She received her B.
Sc. in Electrical Engineering (Dipl. – Ing) from the University of
Tuzla, Bosnia (1998). She received her M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering
with honors from the West
Virginia University
(2002). Edina
became NERC certified System Reliability Operator in 2004. She is
actively involved in many industry organizations including NERC, MISO,
PSERC and EPRI. Her field of interest includes power system operation
and reliability. Edina is presently
pursuing her MBA at University
of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. She
was nominated by UWM Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business as a ‘great
student with a great story’ for Featured Graduate Student section. She
is a chair of the IEEE Women in Engineering Group for Milwaukee and is
an active member of Long Range Planning Committee for IEEE PES.
She is also a member of Beta Gamma Sigma - International Honor Society
of business and administration.
KAREN BUTLER-PURRY, Texas
A&M University
Dr. Karen
L. Butler-Purry received
her B.Sc. (summa cum laude) in Electrical Engineering in 1985 from Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA. She was awarded her M.Sc. degree
in 1987 from the University of Texas at Austin. She was
awarded her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1994 from Howard University. Dr.
Butler-Purry joined the Electrical Engineering
Department at Texas A&M University in 1994 as
a Visiting Assistant Professor. She was promoted through the ranks and
currently serves as a Professor in the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department at TAMU. In addition she currently serves as the
coordinator of the Electric Power and Power Electronics group and
director of the Electric Power and Power Electronics Institute in her
department. Also she served as Assistant Dean of Graduate Programs for
the College
of Engineering
from 2001-2004. Dr. Butler-Purry is also president and co-owner of KBP
& Associates, an engineering and construction firm in Plaquemine, LA. Further she is a registered
professional engineer in the states of Louisiana,
Texas and Mississippi. Dr. Butler-Purry
received the National Science Foundation Faculty Career Award (1995)
and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (1999). Dr.
Butler-Purry is a member of the Power Engineering Society, IEEE, American
Society for Engineering Education and the Louisiana Engineering
Society. Also she is an ABET evaluator for Electrical and Computer
Engineering programs. Her research interests are in the areas of:
Intelligent systems; Prognosis of Aging Power Systems; Protection,
Monitoring and Control of Power Systems; and System Modeling and Fast
and Real-time Simulation of Terrestrial and Stand Alone Systems. She
has advised over 30 graduate students and 54 undergraduate students.
PRABHA S. KUNDUR, Kundur
Power Systems Solutions Inc., Toronto
Prabha Kundur holds a Ph.D. in
Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto and has over 35
years of experience in the electric power industry. He is
currently the President of Kundur Power system Solutions Inc., Toronto,
Ontario. He served as the President and CEO of Powertech Labs
Inc., the research and technology subsidiary of BC Hydro, from 1994 to
2006. Prior to joining Powertech, he worked at Ontario Hydro for
nearly 25 years and held senior positions involving power system
planning and design. He has also served as Adjunct Professor at the
University of Toronto since 1979, at the University of British Columbia
since 1994, and at the University of Manitoba since 2006. He is
the author of the book Power System Stability and Control (McGraw-Hill,
1994), which is a standard modern reference for the subject. He
has performed extensive international consulting related to power
system planning and design, and has delivered technical courses for
utilities, manufacturers and universities around the world. Dr. Kundur
has a long record of service and leadership in the IEEE. He has
chaired numerous committees and working groups of the IEEE Power
Engineering Society, and was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in
1985. He is the immediate past-chairman of the IEEE Power System
Dynamic Performance Committee, and is currently the PES Vice-President
for Education/Industry Relations. He has been selected as an IEEE
Distinguished Lecturer, and has delivered lectures on “Sustainable
Electric Power Systems in the 21st Century” in several countries: UK,
Ireland, Romania, India, Nepal, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Mexico,
Chile, USA, Spain, Italy and Switzerland. He is the recipient of
several IEEE awards, including the Nikola Tesla Award in 1997 and the
Charles Concordia Power System Engineering Award in 2005. He has also
been active in CIGRE for many years. He served as the Chairman of the
CIGRE Study Committee C4 on “System Technical Performance” from 2002 to
2006, and is currently Chairman of the Canadian National Committee of
CIGRE. He is the recipient of the CIGRE Technical Committee Award in
1999. He was bestowed by CIGRE title of Honorary Member in 2006.
He has been awarded two honorary degrees: Doctor Honoris Causa by the
University Politechnica of Bucharest, Romania in 2003, and Doctor of
Engineering, Honoris Causa by the University of Waterloo, Canada in
2004.
DAGMAR NIEBUR, National
Science Foundation
Dagmar Niebur holds an M.Sc. in
mathematics with a minor in physics from the University of Dortmund,
Germany, an M.Sc. in Computer Science, and a Ph.D. in Electrical
Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne
Switzerland.
Dr. Niebur joined the National Science Foundation in March 2007 as a
Program Director for the Power, Controls and Adaptive Networks Program
of the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems Division in the
Directorate for Engineering. Her responsibilities within the Power,
Controls and Adaptive Networks Program include Power and Energy
Networks as well as Alternate Energy Sources. Dr. Niebur is on an IPA
assignment from Drexel
University,
where she is an associate professor and assistant department head of
planning and development in the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. Before joining Drexel, she held research positions at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, and the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology as well as a computer engineering position at the University of Lausanne. Dr. Niebur’s research
interests are in intelligent control of power and energy systems.
NOEL N. SCHULZ, Mississippi State University
Noel
N. Schulz received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from
Virginia Tech in 1988, followed by her M.S. in Electrical Engineering
also from Virginia Tech in 1990. Dr. Schulz received her Ph.D. in
Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota in 1995. She has been
a faculty member at Virginia Tech, the University
of North Dakota, and Michigan Technological
University prior to her
appointment at Mississippi
State in 2001.
She currently holds the TVA Endowed Professorship in Power Systems
Engineering. Dr. Schulz has published 1
book chapter, 18 journal articles, and over 40 peer-reviewed conference
papers. She has advised 7 Ph.D. students and 25 M.S. students to
completion of their degrees, and has brought in over $6.4M in external
research funding. Dr. Schulz has been recognized with several awards
for her research including the IEEE Power Engineering Society
Outstanding Young Power Engineer Award in 2002 and the Eta Kappa Nu
(HKN) C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Young Electrical Engineering
Professor Award also in 2002. She is also a Senior Member of IEEE and
served for four years as the IEEE PES Secretary. Effective January 1,
2008, Noel will serve as Treasurer for the IEEE PES Governing Board.
CHERYL A. WARREN,
National Grid
Cheryl
A. Warren
received her B.Sc. in electrical engineering and M.Sc. in engineering
from Union College in Schenectady, New York.
She has been employed by Central Hudson Gas and Electric Company in Poughkeepsie, New York;
Power Technologies, Inc.in Schenectady, New York; and Navigant
Consulting, Inc., in Albany,
New York. She now works
for National Grid, based in Albany,
as the vice president of Asset Strategy and Investment Planning. Her
main areas of expertise are distribution reliability analysis, asset
management tools and techniques; GIS/OMS, and enterprise-wide IT
systems integration. Warren
has authored and co-authored 32 technical papers. She chairs the
IEEE Working Group on Reliability that wrote the Guide on Electric
Power Distribution Reliability Indices (IEEE Std. 1366-2003) and the
IEEE PES Distribution Subcommittee. In June 2007 she received the IEEE
PES Excellence in Power Distribution Engineering Award for her
contributions to electric distribution reliability. Effective January
1, 2008, Cheryl will serve as Secretary for the IEEE PES Governing
Board.
