2026 Keynote Speakers

Gianfranco Chicco holds a Ph.D. in Electrotechnics Engineering and is a Full Professor of Electrical Energy Systems at Politecnico di Torino (POLITO), Italy. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Chair of the IEEE Italy Section (2023-2024). He received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universities Politehnica of Bucharest and Technical University “Gheorghe Asachi” of Iasi (Romania) in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
He is the Scientific Responsible of the research group on Power and Energy Systems at POLITO, and the Responsible of the Torino unit of the Italian Consortium ENSIEL.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of Sustainable Energy Grids and Networks, a Subject Editor of Energy, and an Editor of IEEE Open Access Journal of Power and Energy, IET Renewable Power Generation, and Energies (MDPI).
He was the Conference Chair of WESC 2006, IEEE ISGT Europe 2017, UPEC 2020, and IEEE Eurocon 2023. Within POLITO, he participated in the European projects FP7 DIGENAS, FP7 SiNGULAR, H2020 FLEXMETER, H2020 PLANET, H2020 STORE&GO, Erasmus+ EU-MONG, and Erasmus+ THREE-LANKA. Within ENSIEL, he was the Scientific Coordinator for the European project H2020 MIGRATE, and participated in the European projects FP7 eHighway2050 and H2020 OSMOSE.
His research activities include Power System Analysis, Distribution System Analysis and Optimization, Electrical Load Management, Energy Efficiency and Environmental Impact of Multi-Energy Systems, Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence Applications to Power and Energy Systems, Renewable Energy Sources and Distributed Generation, and Power Quality.
His International scientific production includes one book, five book chapters, over 100 journal publications, and over 150 publications in conference proceedings.

Dr. Kwok W. Cheung received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. He joined GE (formerly ESCA) as a power system engineer developing online dynamic security assessment and energy management solutions in 1991. From 1995 to 2008, he held various technical lead and management positions responsible for the design and implementation of many leading energy and transmission markets worldwide including Transpower (New Zealand), Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), ISO New England, PJM, ERCOT, and Midcontinent ISO. In 2008, he became the R&D Director of Market Management Systems managing a worldwide engineering group to research, develop, and maintain market management products and related smart grid solutions. From 2015 to 2024, he has been the Director and CTO of Global Market Management Solutions (MMS) of GE Grid Software Solutions responsible for managing the overall worldwide businesses and product solutions for MMS. He is currently the CEO of KC-Exousia Consulting providing independent consulting services to utilities and governments around the world in grid modernization, control, and electricity market design and implementation. Dr. Cheung has authored and co-authored over 120 technical papers published in international journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Cheung is a registered Professional Engineer of the State of Washington, a Senior Fellow of GE, and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Dr. Hongqi Sun is a Professor of Chemistry at The University of Western Australia and was the Professor of Chemical Engineering (2017-2023) at Edith Cowan University, and a Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow (2009-2016) at Curtin University. He became a Board Member at MRIWA in August 2023.
Hongqi is a world-renowned scientist who has made significant contributions to catalysis, renewable energies, mining and environmental remediation. He has published over 300 journal articles, received over 33,000 citations, and reached the h-index of 100 (Google Scholar in 08/2023). He has been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science Group since 2019. He was named one of Australia’s Top 40 Research Superstars by The Australian’s Research Magazine, and recently a Finalist of 2023 Premier’s Science Award: Mid-Career Scientist of The Year.
Hongqi has been a member of Australian Research Council College of Experts, a delegate to Australia-USA Hydrogen Research Partnerships, and the Associate Editor of RSC Advances. He was the Chair of ECU’s Research Professoriate Group (2021-2022), and Deputy Chair of Radiation, Biosafety and Hazardous Substances Committee (RBHSC, 2017-2019). He is a Highly Cited Researcher (Web of Science, 2019-2021), and one of Top 40 Australian Research Superstars (The Australian’s Research Magazine, 2020).

Mohamed Benbouzid received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Batna, Batna, Algeria, in 1990, the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, Grenoble, France, in 1991 and 1994, respectively, and the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches degree from the University of Picardie “Jules Verne,” Amiens, France, in 2000.
After receiving the Ph.D. degree, he joined the Professional Institute of Amiens, University of Picardie “Jules Verne,” where he was an Associate Professor of electrical and computer engineering. Since September 2004, he has been with the University of Brest, Brest, France, where he is a Full Professor of electrical engineering. Prof. Benbouzid is also a Distinguished Professor and a 1000 Talent Expert at the Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China. His main research interests and experience include analysis, design, and control of electric machines, variable-speed drives for traction, propulsion, and renewable energy applications, and fault diagnosis of electric machines.
Prof. Benbouzid is an IEEE Fellow and a Fellow of the IET. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Energy Conversion and the Applied Sciences (MDPI) Section on Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering. He is a Subject Editor for the IET Renewable Power Generation.

Huai Wang is currently a Professor at the Department of Energy, Aalborg University, Denmark, where he leads the Reliability of Power Electronic Converters (ReliaPEC) group. He is also the Head of Mission on Digital Transformation and AI, with 13 affiliated research groups, to enable the next leap in transforming energy systems by bridging the multi-disciplinary research and innovation in energy, digitalization, and AI. His research addresses the fundamental challenges and application issues in efficient, reliable, and cognitive power electronic converters functioning as energy processors for our electrified and digitalized world. He collaborates widely with industry companies across the value chain, from power electronic materials and components to systems. He has contributed a few original concepts and methods to power electronics reliability and passive components and received six paper awards from IEEE and IET. In addition, he has given more than 100 invited talks in universities, companies, and conferences. He is the co-founder of Nordic Passive ApS.
Dr. Wang received his Ph.D. degree from the City University of Hong Kong in 2012 and a B. E. degree from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2007. He was a short-term visiting scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2013 and ETH Zurich in 2014. He was with the ABB Corporate Research Center, Switzerland, in 2009. He received the Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from the IEEE Power Electronics Society in 2016 for his contribution to the reliability of power electronic converter systems. He was as the Chair of IEEE IAS/IES/PELS Chapter in Denmark during 2018-2020 and serves the editorial board of four journals from IEEE, Springer Nature, and Elsevier.

Bikash Pal is Professor of Power Systems at Imperial College London. He is research active in power system stability, control and computation. His research is sponsored by EPSRC, National Grid, GE, ABB, UK Power Networks. He is currently leading a six-university UK-China research consortium (2020-2023) in Sustainable Energy Networks. In the past he led an eight-university UK-India research consortium (2013-2017) on Smart Grid and Storage and a six-university UK-China research consortium (2014-2017) in Smart Grid and Control . His research group has received 2016 President Award for Outstanding Research. He is consultant to United Nations, GE, ALSTOM, National Grid, UK Power Networks . He has graduated 20 PhDs and published about 120 technical papers in IEEE Transactions and IET journals. He has co-authored four books and two award winning IEEE Task Force/Working Group reports.
As Vice President of Publication, Power and Energy Society (PES), of IEEE he sets and delivers plan to sustain the growth in quality, impact and annual revenue (currently about $5M) and also offers leadership as Governing Board member for the growth of the society. As IEEE Periodical committee member he was part of team that approves new periodicals and reviews the performance of the current periodicals. He chaired an IEEE Working Group in state estimation for power distribution applications. Since 2008 , as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer he has been offering special lectures and tutorials in power system control and computation . He was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy. He is Series Editor of Elesevier series on Sustainable Energies and Fellow of IEEE for his contribution to power system stability and control. He was Otto Monstead Internatonal Professor at Denmark Technical University (DTU) in 2019, and Mercator Professor at University of Duisburg-Essen in 2011 invited respectively by the Ottomonstead Foundation and German Research Foundation (DFG). He holds a Visiting Professorship at Tsinghua University, China.