Category: News/Events

The PEARS lab has begun to track CO₂ emissions for conference-related travel of the lab members. Here are some statistics for 2024:

• Took 6 trips to attend conferences
• In total, 7 lab members attended conferences
• Locations: 2 in North America, 1 in Europe, 3 in Asia
• Estimated CO₂ emissions: 29.9 tons

Attending conferences is very valuable to our lab members, but we recognized that each flight has nonnegligible climate-changing emissions. To mitigate emissions, we target conferences in Asia or with virtual options. Additionally, Prof. Katherine Kim personally purchases a tree-planting certificate to offset some of the emission from lab-related travel. To offset the emissions from 2024, a certificate for planting 500 trees was purchased through Ecosia (certificate shown below). The PEARS Lab is committed to reducing emission from our activities and operations while conducting high-quality research on power electronics for a sustainable future.

On January 17, 2025, Ph.D. Student Selin Bagci successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on “Flexible Solar Energy Harvesting and Fabric-Based Circuits: A Framework for Wearable Power Electronics.” The group picture from the doctoral defense is pictured below.

Throughout her graduate studies, Selin (soon to be Dr. Bagci) has become an expert on designing, developing, and evaluating power electronics for wearable applications with a particular focus on solar photovoltaic energy harvesting and circuit implementation on fabric substrates. She has authored/co-authored many academic papers on these topics, which can be found on the Publications page.

Prof. Katherine Kim and undergraduate intern Kai En Loo attended IEEE Energy Conversion Conference and Expo (ECCE) 2024 held in Phoenix, AZ, USA.

During the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) Town Hall meeting on October 20, 2024, Prof. Kim presented an update on the recent educational activities of PELS. There are many educational activities for IEEE PELS members, ranging from students to professionals, including webinars, podcasts, student competitions, an educational video series (PELSTube), ‘PhD Schools,’ and university power electronics kits. After, she participated in an open panel discussion as the PELS Vice President for Global Relations (and Educational Activities). A picture of the panel is below.

During the poster presentation on October 21, 2024, Kai En presented his poster on “Photovoltaic Array Mismatch Analysis for Differential Power Processing Systems Using Real-World Data,” as shown in the picture below. He talked to many people at the conference explaining how his work utilized real-world data to investigate differences among channels in solar PV panels to better understand the requirements for differential power processing converters.

Prof. Katherine Kim attended the Frontiers in Education (FIE) 2024 conference in Washington DC, USA, October 13-16, 2024. During the conference, Prof. Kim served as a Session Chair for “T101: DEI for STEM Faculty” on October 15, 2024, learning about various types of educational research studies. While at FIE 2024, Prof. Kim was overjoyed to reconnect with professors and students from Olin College, her Alma Mater.

During the Awards Luncheon on October 15, 2024, Prof. Kim received the 2024 Mac Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award from the IEEE Education Society, ‘For innovative teaching methods to foster interactive student experiences and inclusive learning environments.‘ She was honored to be one of the IEEE Education Society Awardees for 2024, as shown in the picture below.

Prof. Katherine Kim was awarded the 2024 Ta-You Wu Memorial Award (113 年度吳大猷先生紀念獎) from the Taiwan National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). Prof. Kim was presented the award on September 27, 2024, by the President of National Taiwan University, Dr. Wen-Chang Chen, as shown below.

Prof. Kim was honored to receive such a prestigious recognition and plans to continue making strides in research to achieve a clean and sustainable future worldwide.

Prof. Katherine Kim attended the Future of Electronic Power Processing and Conversion (FEPPCON) 2024 conference held in Geneve, Switzerland. She was invited to participate in Session 7 on “Workforce Development: Empowering the Next Generation,” organized by Dr. Christina DiMarino and Dr. Chris Mi (see image below). During the session, Prof. Kim gave a presentation entitled “Embracing Diversity: Exploring Educational Approaches for Inclusive Learning Environments” and also moderated the panel session that followed.

During the forum, the participants also took a tour of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to learn how power electronics is a vital part of making and running the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Prof. Kim loved the tour of the various facilities at CERN (see image below).

Prof. Katherine Kim and undergraduate student To-Lei (Doris) Huang attended the IEEE Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics (COMPEL) held on June 24-27, 2024, at Lahore University of Management Sciences, in Lahore, Pakistan. Doris presented the paper entitled “Indoor Panel-Based Photovoltaic Emulation Method Implementation and Evaluation” during Poster Session 2 on June 27, 2024, pictured below.

Prof. Kim also helped host the Women in Engineering event with Dr. Marium Rasheed (Ford Motor Company) on June 25, 2024. The panel event was entitled “Empower All: Fostering Inclusivity, Career Growth, and Diverse Representation in Engineering” and featured advice from six esteemed panelist, pictured below.

For COMPEL 2024, Prof. Kim served on the Technical Program Committee and Women in Engineering Committee. COMPEL is a flagship conference for the IEEE PELS Technical Committee 1, focusing on control and modeling of power electronics. Any IEEE PELS member interested in control and modeling can join Technical Committee 1 online free of charge.

Prof. Katherine Kim was featured in the National Taiwan University (NTU) Electrical Engineering (EE) alumni website. The article introduces Prof. Kim’s background and research to the NTU EE alumni community. The article can be found here:
https://alumni.ee.ntu.edu.tw/?p=7099

Prof. Katherine Kim, Bo-Shiang Lee, and Shih-Fan Liu attended the International Power Electronics Motion Control Conference (IPEMC 2024-ECCE Asia) in Chengdu, China, held on May 17-20, 2024. Master’s student Shih-Fan Liu presented his poster on “Wiring Harness Cable Input Impedance Verification For Electromagnetic Compatibility Pre-Compliance Testing” and Master’s student Bo-Shiang Lee presented his poster on “Modeling and EMC Analysis of Capacitive Coupling to Low-Voltage Cables in an Electric Vehicle” during Poster Presentation A on May 18, 2024.

Prof. Kim attended the IEEE PELS Women in Engineering Roundtable Mentorship Event on May 19, 2024 (pictured below), and also served as a mentor. The event facilitated discussions on a variety of trending topics, including career development, the future of power electronics, and promoting diversity and inclusion within the field. It was organized and hosted by Hong Li (Beijing Jiaotong University), Han Cui (Tianjin University), and Ping Yang (Southwest Jiaotong University).

In January 2024, Prof. Katherine A. Kim was elected as the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) Vice President for Global Relations for the 2024-2025 term. In this role she will serve both global relations and educational activities for PELS. Her goals for her term are to expand educational activities globally, such as PELS PhD Schools, Educational Videos (PELSTube), and Educational Outreach, with underlying values of transparency, accessibility, and inclusion. She is the first woman in PELS history to serve as a vice president.

On December 29, 2023, Prof. Katherine A. Kim received two prestigious awards from the National Taiwan University (NTU) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department:

• NTU EECS 112th Annual Academic Contribution Award
• NTU EECS Outstanding EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) Teaching Award

Prof. Kim was honored to recieve the awards and gives thanks to all the mentors, collaborators, and colleagues who have supported her work during her career. She will continue to work hard on transformative research and create an exceptional education environment for her students.

Prof. Katherine A. Kim, Selin Bagci, and Lien-Chieh Chen attended the Workshop on Wide Bandgap Power Devices and Applications in Asia (WiPDA-Asia 2023) in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on August 27-29, 2023. Master’s student Lien-Chieh Chen presented his work on “Comparison of Bidirectional Flyback and Split-Inductor Boost converter Topologies for Photovltaic Differential Power Processing Systems” (photo below). His paper recieved the “Best Student Presentation Award”!

Prof. Katherine Kim gave a talk on May 16, 2023, at the English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) Happy Hour in her talk entitled “Ideas and Tools for Evoking Student Engagement in EMI Courses.” It was an excellent opportunity to share her experience with using flipped learning in electrical engineering classes and hear ideas from the attendees. A full article about the event was published by NTU’s Center for Bilingual Education here: https://www.facebook.com/NTUCBE/posts/pfbid0tqAM28xA9UtyTYqpK8JkBzjER2TdMJyTooP4ecAmuvkWryq4qM64MRJEQpBaHMLAl

Prof. Katherine Kim was honored to give a Plenary Talk on “Developing the Power Electronics Workforce Through MOOC Degree Programs and Public Educational Videos” with Dr. Robert W. Erickson at APEC 2023 in Orlando, Florida, USA on March 20, 2023. The recorded version of the talk is below.

https://ieeetv.ieee.org/channels/pels/apec-2023-keynote-developing-the-power-electronics-workforce-through-mooc-degree-programs-and-public-educational-videos-robert-w-erickson-katherine-a-kim-

The IEEE IA/IE/PELS Joint Chapter in Kerala, India, invited Prof. Katherine Kim to give a webinar on “Differential Power Processing DC-DC Converters for Solar Photovoltaic Applications” on May 18, 2020. The Chapter in Kerala is very active and the webinar was well attended by the members, with over 100 attendees. Thanks to the chapter organizers for their great efforts.

Every year, Prof. Katherine A. Kim teaches a power electronics course. As part of the course, there is a photo contest. The photos for the Fall 2019 Introduction to Power Electronics has been posted and are open for voting.

The class’s photos and descriptions are posted here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/72392935@N06/albums/72157712084784577

Based on the photos and descriptions, vote on your favorites here:
Voting Form – Introduction to Power Electronics Photo Contest

Voting will be open until December 18 at midnight. Participation is open to everyone, but one vote per person.

Prof. Katherine A. Kim was recognized as an Innovator Under 35 for the Asia Pacific Region by the MIT Technology Review for 2020 for “Developing power electronics and control to maximize solar photovoltaic power for emerging applications”. She will give a short talk on her work at EmTech Asia in Singapore in February 2020.

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Prof. Katherine A. Kim gave a seminar on “Differential Power Processing DC-DC Converters for Solar Photovoltaic Applications” at University of Macau in Macau, China. Prof. Kim was invited by Prof. Chi-Seng Lam of the State-Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI & Institute of Microelectronics at the University of Macau. The seminar was supported by the IEEE Macau IES Chapter.

Prof. Katherine A. Kim attended the  IEEE International Future Energy Electronics Conference in Singapore, on November 25-28, 2019. Prof. Kim served on the organizing committee as the Tutorial Co-Chair.

On November 25, she chaired the tutorials entitled “Multi‐Cell & Multi-Level Power Converters ‐ A Way to Go Beyond the  Limits” by Prof. Petar J. Grbović from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and the tutorial entitled “Recent Advances in Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines for Applications in Automotive and Renewable Energy Systems” by Dr. Rukmi Dutta and Prof. Faz Rahman, from the University of New South Wales, Australia. On November 27, Prof. Kim also served as a chair for Technical Session 22 (C2‐RET3): Renewable Energy Technologies 3.

Prof. Katherine A. Kim, Prof. Yu-Chen Liu, and student Ting-Yu Lin attended the Symposium on Semiconductor Power Conversion in Tama, Tokyo, Japan October 25 – 27, 2019.

On Saturday, October 26, undergraduate student Ting-Yu Lin (National Ilan University, Taiwan) presented collaboration work on “Measurement and Analysis Procedure for Power Profiles in Wearable Photovoltaic Applications” during the poster session.