University of Utah electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Masood Parvania received the 2018 Engineering Educator of the Year award from the Utah Engineers Council during a banquet Feb. 24 at the Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah.
Parvania, who has been with the University of Utah since 2015, is also director of the Utah Smart Energy Lab (U-Smart) at the U, which is developing the next generation of sustainable power and energy systems that integrate energy technologies and distributed energy resources.
“I am honored to bring this award for the U engineering community and feel blessed that our dedication and hard work at the Utah Smart Energy Lab is recognized by this award,” he said. “I would like to thank all my students for their excellent work in the many research projects we are leading in at U-Smart.”
The Utah Engineers Council is an organization of engineering societies in the state that provide a place where they can work together to promote engineering in the state. The Engineering Educator of the Year award goes to one person in Utah who has been outstanding in furthering engineering education. Member societies that make up the council nominate those eligible for the award. University of Utah chemical engineering assistant professor Kerry E. Kelly was the keynote speaker at this year’s banquet.
Parvania earned his bachelor’s at Iran University of Science and Technology and a master’s and doctorate from Sharif University of Technology in Iran, all in electrical engineering. His research is focused on the economic, resilient and sustainable operation of interdependent critical infrastructure; and the sustainable integration of distributed and renewable energy resources in the power grid.
Projects at U-Smart include researching the automated monitoring and control of electric-vehicle charging and its impact on the power infrastructure, and the modeling and impact analysis of compressed air energy storage in power systems.