Welcome to
CURENT
Spring 2017
Dr. Tomsovic
D ear CURENT colleagues and supporters,
Thank you for your interest in CURENT. It is our pleasure to update you about recent Cen-
ter activities.
Our Annual Industry Day and NSF / DOE Site Visit was held Nov. 15th-17th, 2016. We hosted
approximately 250 members of industry; invited speakers; the NSF / DOE Site Visit Team;
faculty and students from the four CURENT partner schools; and other guests. On Industry
Day, invited industry leaders spoke about their work and our students gave presentations
on their research. During the Site Visit the next day, faculty provided research updates and
we toured the CURENT headquarters and laboratories. The Center received an outstanding
review overall and we enjoyed the chance to show off our Center and laboratories and to
introduce people to the work being done here.
We have added eight new Industry Members since August 2016, bringing our total num-
ber of Industry members to 36. Our member web portal was launched last year, and each
month we’ve seen an increase in industry traffic to view presentations and seminars. Please
take some time to view the intriguing research results posted on the portal. Our monthly
industry seminars continue to provide our students with invaluable information about the
power industry and the webcasts of these seminars have proven very attractive to indus-
try. Interest in our students remains high and several of our students are currently doing
internships.
As always, our newsletter contains research overviews and/or updates. In this issue, we’ll
discuss Denoising and Data Compression by Dr. Jesmin Khan, Dr. Gregory Murphy, Dr. Sherif
Bhuiyan and Jonathan Williams and Social-Psychological Approaches of Demand Response
by Dr. Chien-fei Chen and Dr. Xiaojing Xu, among others. This type of progressive research
keeps us excited about the future here at CURENT.
We are now halfway through the Center’s sixth year. Day to day operations are well-es-
tablished and our program has steadily evolved into a highly-structured Center with both
mature and newly developing research areas. Our industry membership has provided and
provides an important base of support and our industry partnerships continue to increase.
As far as we’ve come, we feel like there is still much more to be done. And with your help,
we are looking forward to a bright and progressive future.
Please let us know how we are doing and how we can support you needs and provide value
to your organization. Your feedback and comments are crucial to us.
Sincerely,
Kevin Tomsovic
a National Science Foundation &
Department of Energy
Engineering Research Center