As society increasingly turns away from fossil fuels to power cars, trains, machines and more, it is looking for advances in the field of power electronics and sustainable energy.
In August, Chanyeop Park joined UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science as an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering Department. Much of Park’s research has focused on securing the dielectric integrity and preventing the aging of next-generation power and energy technologies.
Specifically, he has aimed to identify, characterize, and address existing knowledge gaps and challenges that are emerging with the advances in power electronics, renewable energy, electric ships, electric aircraft, and soft electronics.
“Conventional solutions are ineffective in the emerging power and energy systems driven by power electronics,” he says.
Park said UWM offered a great fit for his career goals, as it is surrounded by large power industries and is a member of the National Science Foundation-backed research center GRAPES (GRid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems).
“It’s one of the few universities that recognizes the growing significance of electrical insulation research for power-electronic-driven systems,” he said. “I see a great synergistic potential between my fundamental research projects and the practical research projects ongoing at the Center for Sustainable Electric Energy Systems.”
Wants to “cultivate environment where young researchers can thrive”
Park’s areas of expertise include dielectrics, high voltage engineering, power electronics, composites, plasma physics, applied superconductivity, and machine learning.
As a principal investigator, he has secured $1.3 million in research funding from federal and industry sponsors including the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the NSF. As a co-PI, his share of research funds has reached $1.1 million, granted from various sponsors including AIRBUS and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers.
As a faculty member at UWM, Park said, his goals include establishing a lab dedicated to dielectric resiliency and electrical aging mitigation and winning ONR’s Young Investigator Award.
“I also want to cultivate an environment where young researchers can thrive,” he said.
Shortage of young power and energy engineers motivated him in classroom
Park is an ardent teacher, who says that the shortage of young power and energy engineers motivates him as an educator.
“Teaching engineering students how to transform their ideas into useful systems and applications is more important than ever,” he says. “Excellent GPAs don’t guarantee that students understand how their knowledge can be applied in the real world.”
Park comes to UWM from Mississippi State University, where he was research director of the Paul B. Jacob High Voltage Laboratory. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech (2018 -19). and received his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech (2018). He earned his MS degree (2013) and BS. degree (2011) in Electrical Engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea.
Contact Chanyeop Park
Email: chanyeop@uwm.edu
Office: USRB 201Q