Peng Zhang

Biography

Peng Zhang is a tenured Full Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor at Stony Brook University, New York, USA. He is an affiliated Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook University. He graduated from Shandong University, Tsinghua University, and received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. He was a System Planning Engineer at BC Hydro and Power Authority, Canada, during 2006-2010.

Prof. Zhang published over 200 journal and conference papers, technical reports and patents. He is the author of Networked Microgrids (2021, Cambridge University Press) and the editor of Microgrids: Theory and Practice (2024, Wiley-IEEE Press). In the past decade, he pioneered software-defined resilient power grid, and has been developing a series of technologies such as software-defined urban distribution network (SD2N), programmable microgrids, quantum-secure microgrids, and formal methods for microgrids/macrogrids.

Together with his collaborators and students, Prof. Zhang pioneered a series of quantum computing, quantum security, quantum networking and quantum machine learning algorithms that have been successfully implemented on today’s noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers to solve challenging power system problems. Prof. Zhang and his team have been building an AI-operated programmable platform that integrates various deep neural network frameworks, reachability analysis, formal control, and runtime assurance technologies to enable scalable, self-protecting, autonomic and provably resilient power grids and microgrids. When he was a Performance Planning Engineer at BC Hydro in Canada, he planned, designed, and commissioned British Columbia’s first large wind farm Bear Mountain Wind Project and provided planning services to multiple large wind generation projects with a total capacity of two gigawatts.

Prof. Zhang received a 2018 IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation Award for leadership and contributions in the areas of microgrids, smart communities and cities, cyber-physical security and smart ocean systems, an Outstanding Engineer Award, IEEE Connecticut Section, and an Outstanding Young Engineer Award, IEEE Long Island Section for contributions to reliable and secure distributed energy resources and microgrids. He also received the 2018 Excellence in Energy Award by Connecticut Power & Energy Society for shaping the renewable energy landscape. He was an Outstanding Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.