Biography:

Mohamed A. El-Sharkawi is a Fellow of IEEE. He received his BSc in Electrical Engineering from Cairo High Institute of Technology (currently, Helwan University) in 1971, and his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1980. In 1980, he joined the University of Washington, as a faculty member, where he is presently a Professor of Electrical Engineering. He also served as the Associate Chair, the Chairman of Graduate Studies and Research; and the Chairman of Promotion and Tenure.

Professor El-Sharkawi served as the Vice-President for Technical Activities of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. He is currently the Chairman of the IEEE Subcommittee on Renewable Energy Machines and Systems, IEEE awards subcommittee, and IEEE fellows subcommittee.

He is the founding chairman of numerous IEEE task forces, working groups and subcommittees. He organized and chaired numerous panels and special sessions in IEEE, and other professional organizations. He organized and taught several international tutorials on intelligent systems applications, energy management systems, renewable energy, integration of wind systems, electric safety, forecasting, vulnerability assessment, VAR management, and power systems operations.

He is the founder/co-founder and chair of several conferences, including the International Conference on the Application of Neural Networks to Power Systems (ANNPS), Intelligent Systems Applications to Power (ISAP), the Northwest Energy System Symposium (NWESS). He is also a member of the organizing committees of numerous regional and international conferences.

Professor El-Sharkawi is a member of the editorial boards, and is associate editor of several journals. He served as editor/co-editor of several IEEE tutorial books on Intelligent Systems and Heuristic Optimization. He published over 250 papers and book chapters in his research areas. He authored three textbooks on Fundamentals of Electric Drives, Electric Energy: An Introduction, and Electric safety. He also authored and co-authored 4 research books in the area of intelligent systems. He holds 5 licensed patents in the area of renewable energy VAR management, and minimum arc sequential circuit breaker switching.

Professor El-Sharkawi served as an external evaluator for several engineering schools and research programs in the Middle East. He is also an expert witness in the areas of electric safety, system?s operation and control, power systems, and renewable energy.

Abstract: