Maryam Saeedifard, associate professor in the Georgia Tech School for Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), has been selected as a recipient for the 8th Nagamori Foundation Awards. The prestigious award works to vitalize the research and development of motor, power generator, actuator, and other related technologies, and support research and development engineers.

Saeedifard, who has been an ECE faculty member since 2014 and holds a Dean’s Professorship from Tech’s College of Engineering, is being recognized for her research contributions in “highly-efficient, power-dense and fault-tolerant multilevel converter-based medium-voltage drives.” She is one of six award recipients and will be recognized at a commendation ceremony on September 4, 2022, where one recipient will be named the Grand Nagamori Award winner. Each recipient will receive 2 million yen and the Grand Nagamori Award winner will receive a prize of 5 million yen.

Saeedifard is a leading expert on power electronics for energy conversion systems, and was named an IEEE Fellow in January 2022. During her career, she has developed modular and scalable power conversion circuits for medium-and high-voltage applications. 

Some awards and achievements include: 

• Co-Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics since 2021
• U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Technology Research & Innovation Award from the Department of Energy (2021)
• First Place Prize Paper Award from the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics in (2021)
• IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Engineer Award (2019)
• Best Transactions Paper Award of the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (2018 and 2016)
• IEEE J. David Irwin Early Career Award (2018)
• IEEE Technical Committee Working Group Recognition Award (2015) 
• U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Frontiers in Engineering in Education (2012) 
• U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Frontiers in Engineering (2011) 
• Excellence in Research Award from the Office of Vice President in Research at Purdue University (2012 and 2011)
• IEEE Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronic Engineer Award (2010)
• Co-Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Trans. on Power Electronics since 2021

The Nagamori Foundation of Kyoto, Japan, was founded in 2014 by its president, and the founder of Nidec Corporation, Shigenobu Nagamori. In 2021, Jun Ueda, professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, was recognized with a Nagamori Award for his research on cellular actuators.