Santiago Grijalva was named as a Georgia Power Distinguished Professor, effective March 1. Dr. Grijalva has been an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech since 2009.

A pioneer in the area of power system informatics and green electricity, Dr. Grijalva serves as the director of the Advanced Computational Electricity Systems Laboratory, where he advises 22 graduate students. The group focuses on high-impact, transformative research on electrical energy systems for both large- and small-scale grid and on the “systems” problems of electrical energy, including planning and real-time system control stages. In his role as the associate director for electricity systems with the Strategic Energy Institute, he is responsible for coordinating large efforts on electricity research and policy at Georgia Tech. 

Dr. Grijalva’s research and educational interests include real-time power system control, electrical energy informatics, and power system economics. He leads research efforts focused on future electricity grids for the U.S. Department of Energy, ARPA-E, the Electric Power Research Institute, and the Power Systems Engineering Research Center, an NSF-funded center based at Arizona State University. He is also the founding faculty advisor for the Georgia Tech Energy Club.

Prior to his arrival at Georgia Tech, Dr. Grijalva worked with PowerWorld Corporation as a senior software architect and developer of innovative power systems applications used today in more than 60 countries. He also worked with the Ecuadorian National Center for Energy Control as engineer and manager of the Real-Time EMS Software Department.