Amro Quedan

Ph.D. candidate, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Title: Grid-forming inverter modeling & operation in high-inverter based resources electrical network Advisor: Dr. Sohrab Asgarpoor

My name is Amro Quedan, I am a Ph.D. candidate in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. I received my master's degree in architectural engineering from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln in 2017. Before that, I received my bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Jordan in 2013.

After my undergraduate study, I worked for three years in the power system industry that exposed me to different sectors. I worked in medium voltages networks monitoring and control, electrical systems design, and PV systems design and troubleshooting. This diverse experience opened my eyes to different problems and issues in the power system caused by the integration of renewable energy resources into the electrical grid. As a result, I decided to continue my graduate studies to gain the required knowledge to investigate these issues and offer solutions.

Before joining the University of Nebraska- Lincoln for graduate studies, I spent one semester at Wichita state university in Kansas. After that semester, my research mentor accepted a position at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, I decided to move with him, and this is when my story began as a Husker. During my master’s degree, I took several courses and I worked on different research projects related to renewable energy resources. Also, my thesis proposed a new way to enhance the renewable energy resources inverters’ output power quality. The master’s degree increased my passion and pushed me to eagerly look to pursue my Ph.D. degree. This pathway took me to meet my advisor Prof. Sohrab Asgarpoor and Prof. Fred Choobineh to discuss with them the opportunities to continue my Ph.D. degree in the electrical engineering department. It was a great moment when I received the acceptance letter to the Ph.D. program with a teaching assistantship. During my Ph.D. degree, I took several courses in the electrical engineering department in addition to courses in other departments that broadened my horizon and diversified my knowledge about different fields. These courses allowed me to learn new programming languages such as R and Python and introduced me to machine learning and the artificial intelligence field.

During my Ph.D. degree, Prof. Jerry Hudgins (ECE Dept. Chair) offered me a great opportunity to teach power system analysis courses in the department and due to my passion for power systems, I accepted this opportunity. This opportunity polished my knowledge of the power system, and it paved the way for me to teach what I learned throughout the years. Also, it gave me the chance to learn more in-depth power system analysis, as the best way to learn something is to teach it. In addition to this opportunity, during my Ph.D., I was able to work as a research assistant with Caterpillar. We developed new power-sharing algorithms for microgrids, and we conducted dynamic studies using time-domain simulations. After this opportunity, I joined the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) as a student engineer for 16 months. During that period, I worked on projects that includes a development of inverter’s controllers and studies that were related to the electrical grid with high inverter-based resources. On top of that, I was able to attend and publish/review several papers at national and international conferences. Also, it was a great honor to receive the Holling fellowship for three consecutive years.

My passion for power systems is continuing, and I am still at the beginning of my career. In the future, I might join academia, but now I am looking to join the industry to contribute to the challenges facing future power systems and to be part of the new power system era.

Outside work, I enjoy reading, swimming, spending time with family and friends exploring state parks around Nebraska and going to Huskers games.