2018 Austin Power Electronics Symposium

Dear friends and colleagues:

Driven by the commercial availability of wide bandgap (WBG) power devices, this is an exciting time for power electronics community. Future power electronics systems will not only be much more efficient, but also smaller and lighter than before. This will have huge impacts to a whole array of industries from mobile computing, to data center to electric transportations. The increased voltage and speed in these power devices are also making it possible now to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the power grid with advanced medium voltage power electronics technology.

To showcase some of the latest research progress made by the newly established power electronics program at the University of Texas at Austin, we are organizing the 2018 Austin Power Electronics Symposium on May 30, 2018 at the university’s J. J. Pickle campus. You and your colleagues are cordially invited to this inaugural event that I hope will become an annual tradition in the future. In this student organized annual symposium, industry thought leaders and university researchers will interact with each other through a number of oral sessions as well as a poster session.

I hope you will be able to find time to attend this one-day event in the great city of Austin. May weather in Austin is extremely nice and you will enjoy a whole array of outdoor activities that the city is famously known for. So I look forward to seeing many of you in May. I am also eager to obtain your guidance on how to structure the power electronics program at UT Austin in the future.

Sincerely,

Alex Q. Huang, Ph.D. and IEEE Fellow

Director, Semiconductor Power Electronics Center

Dula D. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering