Research faculty member Caryn Riley in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) has been promoted to Principal Research Engineer by the Board of Regents, effective May 1. Granting promotion is an important milestone that requires significant evidence of leadership and independence, as well as meaningful contributions to the School’s research programs and the profession as a whole.

Riley is currently an engineer at ECE’s National Electric Energy Testing, Research, & Applications Center (NEETRAC), where she serves as associate director with primary responsibility for the NEETRAC Baseline Research program and lead engineer for the NEETRAC Nicholas J. Conrad Laboratory (NJCL) high power laboratory in Chicago.

As a principal investigator, her projects include extra high voltage (EHV) and high voltage (HV) cable systems, high voltage switchgear, wildlife guards, insulators, overhead distribution crossarms, and many other power delivery hardware components and technologies (65 projects valued at > $5,000,000). Before transitioning to associate director, she served as section leader for the Electrical & Systems Engineering section and managed the medium and high voltage laboratory facilities, including scheduling of equipment and personnel resources, equipment maintenance, and calibration.

Caryn is active within the IEEE Power & Energy Society’s technical committees serving on multiple working groups to develop international qualification and applications standards for high voltage switchgear and EHV/HV cable systems.

She attended Georgia Tech where she earned the B.S.E.E., M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees in 1992, 1993, and 1998 respectively.