Duke Energy Distinguished Professor of Power Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D., 2002 – University of Natal
Electrical Engineering
MBA, 2016 - Clemson University
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
M.Sc. Eng., 1999 - University of Natal
Electrical Engineering
B.Eng. (Hons.), 1994 – Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Contact Information
Office: 303-D Riggs Hall
Office: 864.656.5936
Fax: 864.656.1411
Email gvenaya@clemson.edu
Personal home page: gvenaya.people.clemson.edu/
Professional Experience
Dr. Venayagamoorthy is the Duke Energy Distinguished Professor of Power Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Clemson University. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), Rolla, USA from 2002 to 2011 where he held the ranks of an Assistant Professor (tenure-track, 2002-2006), Associate Professor (tenured, 2006-2011) and Professor (2011). And prior to Missouri S&T, he was a Senior Lecturer in Department of Electronic Engineering, Durban University of Technology (DUT), Durban, South Africa from 1996 to 2002. While at DUT, he was the Research Chair for Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment and Coordinator for BTech degree program in Electronics Engineering. Dr. Venayagamoorthy holds an Honorary Professor position in the School of Engineering at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Dr. Venayagamoorthy received his Ph.D. and MScEng degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa, in February 2002 and April 1999, respectively. He received his BEng (Honors) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering with a First Class (the first one) from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Nigeria in March 1994. He holds an MBA degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Clemson University, SC (2016).
Dr. Venayagamoorthy is the Founder (2004) and Director of the Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory (http://rtpis.org). The RTPIS Lab is a pioneer and frontier lab for advancing, developing, and implementing artificial intelligence-based algorithms for power systems and smart grids.
Dr. Venayagamoorthy is involved in the leadership and organization of many conferences including the General Chair of the Power System Conference (Clemson, SC, USA) since 2013, and Pioneer and Chair/co-Chair of the IEEE Symposium of Computational Intelligence Applications in Smart Grid (CIASG) since 2011. He is currently the Chair of the IEEE PES Working Group on Intelligent Control Systems, and the Founder and Chair of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Task Force on Smart Grid. Dr. Venayagamoorthy was the past Chair of the IEEE PES Intelligent Systems Subcommittee (2011–2012) and IEEE PES Students Activities Subcommittee (2009 to 2011). He has/is an Editor/Guest Editor for several reputable IEEE Transactions and journals, Elsevier journals, and other journals. He is the Editor for the IEEE Press Series on Power and Energy Systems.
Professor Venayagamoorthy is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (citation: for contributions in the application of artificial intelligence in power systems), Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) UK, the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) and Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA). He is a Senior Member of the International Neural Network Society (INNS). Dr. Venayagamoorthy is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS). He is a member of the Board of Governors (BoGs) of INNS (2023-2035) and past member of BoGs INNS (2009-2011, 2012-2014).
Research
Over the last 25 years, Dr. Venayagamoorthy’s contributions have primarily emphasized on the development and implementation of advanced computational methods and artificial intelligence based algorithms for smart grid applications (e.g. nonlinear modeling and control of power systems, power system optimization, predictions and forecasting of wind and solar energies, energy management systems, wide area monitoring and control systems, dynamic optimal power flow, electric vehicles, micro-grid systems, demand-response management). He works on the development of synchrophasor applications, and situational awareness and intelligence systems for electric power control center operations and management. Dr. Venayagamoorthy is the pioneer in the development and implementation of adaptive and optimal neuroidentifiers and neurocontrollers for power systems. Indirect adaptive control and adaptive critics based optimal controllers have been implemented to control synchronous generators under normal operating conditions and disturbances on actual micro-machines. The adaptive critic control framework has been extended to other smart grid applications including FACTS control, wide area control systems, PV energy management systems, wind farm control, and G2V and V2G transactions. Dr. Venayagamoorthy has demonstrated that distributed SmartParks (plug-in vehicles/electric vehicles parking lots) can be used as Virtual FACTS devices and grid shock absorbers, and with intelligent control can mitigate power system oscillations caused by dynamic operation of wind farms and system disturbances. Dr. Venayagamoorthy coined word “SmartParks” to refer to parking lots with electric vehicles participating in V2G applications. Dr. Venayagamoorthy is an inventor of technologies for scalable computational intelligence for complex systems and dynamic stochastic optimal power flow. Other research activities of Dr. Venayagamoorthy has been in the applications of computational methods have been in sensor networks, cybersecurity and signal processing.
Academic Highlights
Dr. Venayagamoorthy has authored/co-authored three edited books, fifteen book chapters, over 130 refereed journal papers, and over 460 conference papers. He has directed 18 completed Ph.D. degree dissertations and 20 completed master's degree theses. He is a recipient of several awards including a 2007 U.S. Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award, a 2004 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2010 Innovation Award from St. Louis Academy of Science, the 2006 IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Young Engineer Award (and receipt of similar awards from IEEE IAS, SAIEE, INNS, IEEE St. Louis Section and IEEE Region 5), a 2011, 2008, 2007, and 2005 Missouri S&T Faculty Excellence Award, a 2009 Missouri S&T Faculty Research Award and 2006 University of Missouri-Rolla Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Venayagamoorthy was the lead PI on a 2008 NSF EFRI project “Neuroscience and Neural Networks for Engineering the Future Intelligent Electric Power Grid” (http://brain2grid.org). This project of one of four selected for funding in the 2008 NSF EFRI COPN competition.
Dr, Venayagamoorthy’s publications are cited > 22,000 times with a h-index of 70 and i10-index > 300. Dr. Venayagamoorthy has given over 500 invited keynotes, plenaries, presentations, tutorials, and lectures in over 40 countries and in six continents to date.
According to Elsevier BV, Dr. Venayagamoorthy is among the Top 25,000 scientists worldwide across all fields and in the top 0.1% worldwide in the fields of energy and AI, three years in a row – 2019, 2020 & 2021. Dr. Venayagamoorthy is also ranked among the top 1000 scientists in the world in the field of Electrical and Electronics Engineering by Research.com.
Dr. Venayagamoorthy’s new book titled “Intelligent Data Mining and Analysis in Power and Energy Systems” was published by IEEE-Wiley press in December 2022.
More information on Professor Venayagamoorthy's academic activities is available from his personal website.