Niranjan Raghunathan is a graduate student who is serving as a Research and Teaching Assistant. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT in 2014.

Niranjan's research interests lie in optimization problems in power systems and other related fields. He has been actively involved in research and teaching, working on various projects related to these topics.

Feng Chen is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and serves as a research assistant in the SPEL lab under the supervision of Dr. Wang. He earned his B.Eng. degree in Mechatronic Engineering and M.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from South China University of Technology (SCUT), Guangzhou, China, in 2021 and 2024, respectively.

His main research interests include solving optimization problems in power systems, leveraging the capabilities of electric vehicles and DERs. The challenges posed by the uncertainty and large-scale systems have led to his interest in advanced mathematical optimization techniques, such as robust optimization and Lagrangian relaxations.

Altan Unlu is a graduate student currently serving as a Research and Teaching Assistant since Fall 2018. He completed his Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from George Washington University, Washington DC, USA in 2018 after earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Gaziantep, Gaziantep, Turkey in 2015.

Altan's research interests lie in the field of renewable energy and load forecasting, as well as power system optimization with high penetration DERs.

Binit Gautam is a PhD student at the University of Connecticut, where he began his studies in 2023. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, in 2021. Binit is co-major advised by Dr. Wang from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the SPEL lab.

Binit's research focuses on enhancing community resilience, particularly through understanding the interdependencies between critical infrastructure systems. His work also explores the resilience of energy infrastructures.

Xinyang Rui is an incoming Postdoctoral Research Associate at SPEL working on the TRANSFORMATIVE project. He received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Utah in 2024, where his research focused on power system optimization at the transmission system level. He has completed multiple studies on facilitating the adoption of grid-enhancing technologies to alleviate transmission grid congestion.

Dr. Rui’s research interests include power system optimization, renewable energy modeling and integration, grid decarbonization, and power market design.

Jianghua Wu has been a graduate student since Fall 2018 and completed his PhD degree in Fall 2023. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Building Electricity and Intelligence from Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China in 2018.

Jianghua's research interests lie in the field of power system optimization, operation optimization of microgrids and distributed energy systems, as well as smart power systems with machine learning.