UMR to host 35th North American Power Symposium
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More than 140 engineers from seven countries are expected to discuss electrical power issues at the 35th North American Power Symposium, to be held Oct. 20-21 at the University of Missouri-Rolla.
"Power engineering is becoming an important field as we, as a society, are becoming increasingly more dependent on electricity," says Dr. Badrul Chowdhury, professor of electrical and computer engineering and symposium co-chair. "Industry and academia are looking for innovative new solutions to make the power grid more reliable in the face of a growing demand and a degrading electricity infrastructure. The purpose of the symposium is to stimulate scholarly work in electric power engineering and to provide a forum for university faculty, students and industrial representatives to discuss research ideas and to present results of their research with a minimum time delay."
The symposium’s 20 sessions will focus on a variety of timely topics, including energy markets and power system vulnerability and protection, which are of increased interest in light of the Northeast blackout that left 50 million people without power in August.
Featured speakers include David Whiteley, a senior vice president of Ameren Corp. of St. Louis, and Dr. Christopher Ramsay, associate professor of metallurgical engineering at UMR. Ramsay will discuss "Engineering the Titanic What Went Wrong?"
In addition, 87 student papers will be presented. "Nine of those student papers are from UMR," adds Chowdhury.
The symposium is jointly sponsored by UMR and the Power Engineering Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, a non-profit, technical association with more than 382,000 individual members worldwide.
"AmerenUE of St. Louis and the U.S. National Science Foundation have provided generous grants to help with the expenses of hosting the symposium," adds Dr. Chowdhury.
For more information or to register for the conference, visit web.mst.edu/~naps2003/.
