Faculty
Dr. Babak Fahimi
Founding Director of REVT
Dr. Fahimi received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering, with the highest distinction, from the University of Tehran, Iran. Then earned his PhD degree from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX in 1999. After spending 3 years at Electro Standards Laboratories Inc. in Rhode Island as a research scientist, he started his academic career in 2002. Dr. Fahimi has since supervised 36 PhD and 24 M.S. theses to successful completion, has co-authored over 385 scientific articles and holds 22 issued US patents with six more pending. Dr. Fahimi has been the principal investigator of several successful research programs funded by ARPA-e, ONR, NSF, and DoE as well as many industrial projects. For his excellence in research and education he has been recognized with the Richard M. Bass young power electronics investigator award from IEEE-PELS in 2003, Cyril Veinot electromechanical energy conversion award from the IEEE-P&E in 2015, and Ralph Teetor educational award from the society of automotive engineers in 2008. Dr. Fahimi is a distinguished chair of engineering at UT-Dallas and is a Fellow of IEEE for his contributions to the modeling and analysis of AC adjustable speed drives. His areas of interest include optimal design and control of adjustable speed drives, design and development of high-performance power converters, and applications of power electronics to clean energy, healthcare, and electrified transportation.
Dr. Poras Balsara
Associate Director of REVT
Dr. Poras T. Balsara received the L.E.E. diploma in electronics from V.J.T.I., India in 1980 and the B.E. (electrical) degree from the University of Bombay, India in 1983. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Penn State University in 1985 and 1989, respectively. In 1989, he joined the faculty of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he is currently the Vice Dean and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. From 2017-2019, he served as the Interim Dean of the Jonsson School. He co-directs research activities within the Integrated Design, Engineering, and Algorithmics (IDEA) and the Renewable Energy and Vehicular Technology (REVT) Labs. His current research interests include, power electronics, design of energy efficient circuits and systems, and application-specific architectures. He has published several journal and conference publications and has co-authored a book in these areas. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, Engineering Honor Society of Tau Beta Pi, and a Licensed Professional Engineering in the State of Texas
Research Team
Aaron Lane Brown
Graduate Research Assistant
Aaron Lane Brown is a graduate research assistant pursuing an electrical engineering PhD with a prior bachelors and masters in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas. His current research involves control modeling and chaos prediction in DC-DC power converters.
Ahmad Nabizadah
Undergraduate Reseach Assistant
Ahmad Nabizadah is an undergraduate researcher at the REVT Laboratory. He is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering with an expected graduation date of May 2026. His research interests are the design of highly efficient and power-dense AC/DC converters, DC/DC converters, inverters, and control systems. He is currently working on the design of a high-efficiency flyback converter featuring a coreless PCB transformer. He is also competing in the IEEE International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC) for designing a Stereo Switch-mode Audio Power Amplifier with excellent efficiency, power density, and metrics.
Allison Pham
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Allison Pham is a junior at UT Dallas pursuing a bachelor’s in electrical engineering with a minor in Energy Management. With a passion for clean sustainable energy, she is involved with the school by being the current president of IEEE UTD, a Power and Energy Society (PES) Scholar, and part of the Electrical Turbine Design Team for the Wind Competition Club. She is currently designing Stereo Switch-Mode Audio Power Amplifier for the IEEE International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC).
Undergrade Research Assistant
Brent Zimmermann
Brent Zimmermann is currently a senior undergraduate ECE student at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). He is expected to graduate in the Spring of 2024. His research interests are fractional-order electrical network theory for power electronics, fractional-order feedback control systems modeling using MATLAB and Simulink, and nonlinear dynamics in fractional control theory.
Behnam Mosammam
Graduate Research Assistant
Behnam M. Mosammam was born in Hamedan, Iran, 1993. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Shahid Beheshti University and Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran, in 2017 and 2020, respectively. Currently, he is working on design, optimization, and driving of electric motors.
Benjamin Jessie
Graduate Research Assistant
Benjamin Jessie is a PhD candidate and research assistant in the REVT Lab at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). He received his B.S in electrical engineering from Texas Christian University. He received his M.S. from UTD where his primary research was in breast cancer detection using high frequency excitation. His current research involves digital twin modeling of power electronic converters, as well as using machine learning for the detection and classification of false data in microgrids.
Dhruvi Patel
Graduate Research Assistant
Dhruvi Patel received the B.Tech. degree from The LD College of Engineering, Ahmedabad, India, in 2016 and M.Tech. degree from LD Institute of Technology and Research, Gandhinagar, India in 2019. She joined the Renewable Energy and Vehicular Technology Laboratory at the University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA, in 2021, where she is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree. Her current research interests include Electric machines and drives, Ultra-fast chargers for EVs and Power electronics.
Dustin Pundt
Graduate Research Assistant
 Dustin Pundt has a Bachelors Computer Engineering in his Senior year at the University of Texas at Dallas. He joined the Renewable Energy and Vehicular Technology Laboratory in the fall of 2023, where he is currently researching buck-boost converters.
Ethan Winchell
Graduate Research Assistant
Ethan Winchell is a PhD graduate researcher at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). He received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from UTD. His current research centers on power electronics converters and reliability utilizing a probabilistic approach.
Kevin Largent
Graduate Research Assistant
Kevin Largent is a PhD graduate research assistant, holding a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He is in the REVT laboratory at UTD, with a focus on DC-DC converters, controls, and power electronics using MATLAB and Simulink. He is currently engaged in research on breast cancer detection using high-frequency electromagnetic fields, utilizing advanced simulation tools like Ansys High-Frequency Structure Simulation (HFSS) and Steady State Thermal.
Mercy Koech
Graduate Research Assistant
Mercy is a PhD student in Electrical Engineering at UTD. She earned her Bachelors in EE in 2017 from Moi University, Kenya. She contributed to electrifying off-grid communities in Africa using solar microgrids for enterprise development. Her current research is focused on sustainability in electrified transportation. Mercy is an active volunteer with the IEEE Power Energy Society, serving as Member at Large representative – Climate Change on the governing board. She is currently building her expertise in power electronics, electric machines and motor drives at REVT.
Mohammad Rastegar
Graduate Research Assistant
Mohammad Rastegar received his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran in 2017, focused on MMC, DC/DC converters and application of Power Electronics into renewable energy systems. He joined the REVT as a PhD student in Fall 2022 and is now working on WPT, motor drives and hardware design and control of power converters. His research interests include WPT, motor drives, MMC, DC/DC converters and application of Power Electronics in renewable energy systems.
Mohammad Hasan Ghaderi
Graduate Research Assistant
Mohammad Hasan Ghaderi received the B.S. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering both from Shahid Beheshti University , Tehran, Iran, in 2016 and 2019, respectively. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering with the Department of Electrical Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA. His PhD research in REVT Lab is focused on analyzing and control of bifurcation and chaos in cascaded power electronic converters. His research interests include bifurcation and chaos in power electronics, stability analysis and control of power electronics-based systems, power quality, and application of power electronics in microgrids.
Milad Bahrami Fard
Graduate Research Assistant
Milad Bahrami Fard received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Power Electronics and Electrical Machines in 2018 and 2021, respectively. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Power Electronics with a focus on thermal management of electric machines and manufacturing adjustable speed motor drives.
His research interests include Electrical Machine and Drive, Wireless Power Transfer, Electric Vehicles, and Application of Power Electronics in Power Systems.
Majid Ghasemi
Graduate Research Assistant
Majid Ghasemi’s research at REVT focuses on advancing ultra-fast charging technology for electric vehicles (EVs). With a background in electrical engineering, including a Bachelor’s degree from Babol Noshirvani University of Technology and a Master’s degree from the University of Tehran, his work centers on designing and optimizing ultra-fast chargers. These chargers are capable of significantly reducing EV charging times.
Thor Westergaard
Graduate Research Assistant
Thor Westergaard is a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas, building on his Bachelor of Science from the same institution. Proficient in programming languages including C/C++, Python, and MATLAB/Simulink, he’s also skilled in software such as OpenFAST, SOLIDWORKS, and Altium. Westergaard’s coursework and research have centered on electric machines, power electronics, and renewable energy systems, while connecting them with areas like machine learning and signal processing. Currently, as a Graduate Research Assistant, he leads power electronics circuits research at the Renewable Energy and Vehicular Technology Lab, focusing on reliability through machine learning and probability theory. He’s also engaged in project involving the development of microgrids and works on industry projects involving electric drive hardware and control.
Vahid Rafiei
Graduate Research Assistant
Vahid Rafiei received Bachelor and M.sc. degrees from Shahid Beheshti and University of Tehran. He joined REVT in spring 2023 and is pursuing his PhD degree. He is now working on electrical motors and drives. His thesis topic is condition monitoring of permanent magnet machines using artificial intelligence.
Vaibhav Uttam Pawaskar
Graduate Research Assistant
Vaibhav Uttam Pawaskar (Student Member, IEEE) was born in Mumbai, India. He received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India, in 2017, and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 2019 from The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree, in electrical engineering. His Ph.D. thesis is based on distributed control of microgrids based on a multi-agent system. His research interests include microgrid management and control, the application of wide bandgap devices (SiC, GaN, and medium voltage SiC devices) in ac/dc, dc/dc, and inverters, the active gate driving techniques for SiC devices, line filter design and simulation of parasitic elements for the grid-connected converter, and multi-objective optimization of filters. During his Ph.D., he was the recipient of the prestigious merit-based fellowships, Ok Kyun Kim and Youngmoo Cho Kim in 2022, Louis Beecherl, Jr. Graduate in 2021, Mary and Richard Templeton in 2019, and the Pathways to research scholarship in 2018 during his M.S. degree.
Alumni | Visiting Scholars
