A pair of Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) students were awarded a 2024-25 IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Scholarship.

Fourth-year electrical engineering major Susannah Gordon and third-year electrical engineering major Radhika Sharma became the latest ECE students to win the selective award, joining Denitsa Dimitrova who won it last year.

The PES Scholarship Plus Initiative provides scholarships and real-world experience to undergraduates majoring in electrical engineering, who are high achievers with strong GPAs, distinctive extracurricular involvement, and are committed to pursuing careers in power and energy engineering.

Gordon and Sharma were two of just 84 winners from around North America.

On top of the PES Scholarship, Gordon won the John W. Estey Outstanding Scholar Award, which goes to the top PES student in each of the organization’s seven regions. She was chosen as the winner for Region 3.

Gordon’s academic path follows the Electric Energy Systems and Robotics curriculum threads. She has been interested in renewable energy and power engineering since her first year when she joined the Gaming for Electric Power Grids Vertically Integrated Project.

She’s conducted research with ECE associate professor Daniel Molzahn, focusing on generating a synthetic distribution system model for the State of Georgia based on public available information.

On campus, she is involved in ECE Ambassadors, Ramblin’ Reck Club, and Tau Beta Pi.

Upon graduating in May, she will join Kimley-Horn full time as an electrical analyst and hopes to pursue of a master’s degree in electrical engineering part-time at Georgia Tech.

Sharma has been involved in a number of campus organizations, including the Energy Club at Georgia Tech since her first semester at Georgia Tech, where she plans Energy Chats and networking events, along with helping to organize the Southeastern Energy Conference every year.

She’s also on the officer board of Women in ECE (WECE) and is a peer instructor at the Interdisciplinary Design Commons (also known as the Hive Makerspace).

Outside of Georgia Tech she’s completed two internships in power systems. One in power delivery at Florida Power & Light and another in substation design at Burns & McDonnell.

Her main research interest is in scaling the electric power grid. She also conducts research in power reliability with renewable energy sources.

Sharma plans to use the scholarship to finish the fourth year of her degree and use the PES resources that come with it to learn more about the different fields of power systems.

Applications for the 2025 cycle PES Scholarship are open and close on April 30.