2019 DEIS Graduate Fellowship Winners

Every year, the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society offers fellowships to eligible graduate students who are pursuing areas of work of interest to the society.

To learn more about the fellowship or apply for a future one, check out the Education portion of the DEIS website here.

Below are the 2019 fellows:

Jia Wei

Jia Wei received the B.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA, in 2015, and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, in 2017.  He is now pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech. His research interests include novel dielectric materials for future power applications and SF6 replacement media.

Project Title: Investigation of the dielectric properties of pure supercritical fluids and mixtures

Valerie Rennoll

Valerie Rennoll is fourth-year graduate student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins University. She earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Physics and Audio Technology from American University in 2016. As part of the West Research group, Valerie’s research focuses on developing transducers that are optimized for sound propagation through the skin and water. She is currently investigating new materials that can be used to make transducers with tunable impedance, flexibility, and increased sensitivity.

Project Title: Nucleic Acid – Polymer Hybrid Materials for Biocompatible Piezoelectric Devices

Xiaolei Zhao

Xiaolei Zhao was born in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, China, in 1993. He received a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China, in 2015. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University. His research interests include electrical insulation materials and field grading materials.

Project Title: Study on Application of Adaptive Materials in High-Voltage DC Bushings

Hucheng Liang

Hucheng Liang was born in He’nan, China, in 1992. He received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Tianjin University, China, in 2015. He has been pursuing the Ph.D. degree at School of Electrical Engineering and Automation in Tianjin University since then. His main research interests include the insulation and mechanical failures of GIS/GIL.

Project title: “3D Electric Field Reconstruction inside Gas Insulated Transmission Line by Induced Charge Tomography

Tushar Damle

Project title: “Investigation of the effect of surface charge density on insulator flashover characteristics in shipboard power systems