John Pierre to Give UW Faculty Senate Speaker Series Talk April 12

John Pierre, a professor in the University of Wyoming Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will give the UW Faculty Senate Speaker Series talk Tuesday, April 12. 

Pierre will discuss advancements in monitoring the U.S. electric power grid at 4:10 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Family Room.

Along with his discussion topic, Pierre will highlight the contributions his graduate students and his colleagues have made in assisting power utilities in operating the grid more reliably. His lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be available.

“Society has come to expect a reliable electric grid, but recent extreme events, such as the Texas winter storm of 2021 and the out-of-control wildfires in California, are just a couple of events bringing the resilience of the grid into question,” Pierre says. “Electric grids are essentially the world’s largest interconnected machines, frequently spanning thousands of miles.”

The Faculty Senate Speaker Series is an honor established by the Faculty Senate that is awarded to a fall and a spring semester recipient each academic year. Nominations are open to all faculty and academic professionals, and the award carries an honorarium of $1,750.

Pierre has been a faculty member in UW’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for 30 years. He received his bachelor’s degree from Montana State University, and his master’s degree and Ph.D., both from the University of Minnesota, all in electrical engineering.

Pierre has received more than $10.8 million in external research grant funding as a principal investigator (PI) or as a co-PI from the National Science Foundation; the Department of Energy (DOE); four separate DOE national laboratories; utility companies; and private industry. He has written more than 160 refereed publications involving 40 graduate students and 19 department colleagues.

For more information, email Tracy Blakeman, UW Faculty Senate coordinator, at tblakema@uwyo.edu.