Alfredo Vaccaro

Information about the scientific and professional career

Alfredo Vaccaro was born in Vico Equense (NA) on June, 5 1974.

He got the MSc. degree cum laude and commendation in Electronic Engineering from the University of Salerno discussing a thesis titled “High performance Speed Tracking of PDMC Motor Using Neuro-Fuzzy Control”, and the PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

An extract of his MSc. thesis was presented at the 5th UK Workshop on Fuzzy Systems, recent Advances in and Practical Applications of Fuzzy Systems, Sheffield, 26-27 May 1998.

From September 1997 to February 1998 he joined the research group of Intelligent Systems and Control at the Department of Automatic control and System Engineering, University of Sheffield (UK), where he developed the experimental activities of his MSc thesis.

From 1998 to 2002 he attained a research fellowship at the Power System Group of University of Salerno – Department of Electrical and Information Engineering (DIIIE) for the “Study of innovation technologies for remote vehicle management in public transportation systems” (“Studio di tecnologie innovative per la teleregolazione dei veicoli nei sistemi di trasporto pubblico locali”).

From March 2002 to October 2014 he has been Assistant Professor of Electric Power Systems at the Department of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering of University of Sannio.

From June 2008 to June 2012 he chaired the Research & Development Committee of the Opera21 Group SpA in the field of Advanced Information and Communications Technologies for Smart Grids

From January 2009 to December 2014 he was the Task Leader of the strategic scientific initiatives of the Research Consortium on Agent Systems in the field of Smart Energy Networks.

From February 2011 to December 2013 he was the Scientific Director of the bureau of the Research Centre on Pure and Applied Mathematic at the Department of Engineering, University of Sannio.

On October 2014 he obtained the National Scientific Qualification of Full Professor in Electrical Energy Engineering.

Since November 2014 he is Associate Professor of Electric Power Systems at the Department of Engineering, Department of Engineering of University of Sannio.

He is the Chair of the Task Force “Enabling Paradigms for High-performance Computing in Wide Area Monitoring Protective and Control Systems” of the IEEE PSOPE Technologies & Innovation Subcommittee Subcommittee

He is the Chair of the IEEE PES Awards and Recognition Committee

He published, 1 international patent, 3 books, 9 book chapters, 75 journal papers, 66 conference papers, obtaining 2250 citations and Hindex 25 (SCOPUS).Scientific Responsibility for International and National Research Projects

He was the Scientific Coordinator of the following research projects:

1. “Studio di un sistema di controllo avanzato per la gestione ed il monitoraggio remoto di veicoli per il trasporto pubblico” funded by the Ministero dell’Università  e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica MURST under the Research Initiatives for Young Researchers-2000
2. “Sviluppo di modelli termici adattativi per la protezione termica di componenti nei sistemi elettrici per l'energia” funded by the Ministero dell’Università  e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica MURST under the Research Initiatives for Young Researchers-2002
3. “Soluzioni innovative per l’incremento del tasso di utilizzo di infrastrutture elettriche attraverso la stima dinamica delle capacità di carico dei componenti” funded by the Legge Regionale 28 marzo 2002, n. 5.

He was the Scientific Coordinator of the following Research Contracts:

1. Omniasolar srl and the Department of Engineering of the University of Sannio aimed at developing innovative solutions for improving the energy efficiency of photovoltaic cells by pervasive sensor networks.
2. Omniasolar srl and the Department of Engineering of the University of Sannio aimed at assessing the safety of the solar cell production systems.
3. Thales Alenia Space SpA and the Department of Engineering of the University of Sannio aimed at developing accurate, reliable and resilient solutions for time synchronization of phasor measurement units.
4. Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico - Istituto Superiore delle Comunicazioni e delle Tecnologie dell’Informazione and the Department of Engineering of the University of Sannio aimed at developing innovative solutions for reliable time synchronization of sensor networks in critical electrical infrastructures.

Editing of Recognised Journals and Collection of Books

• He was Associate Editor of the IEEE transactions on Industrial Informatics, ISSN: 1551-3203.
• He was co-Editor with prof. George J. Anders of the book entitled "Innovations in Power Systems Reliability" Springer Series in Reliability Engineering, 1st Edition., 2011, XXVI, 426 p. 107 illus., Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-85729-087-8 Ed. Springer.
• He was the Guest Editor of the special issue titled “Enabling Paradigms for Information Processing in Smart Grids" for the International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, Ed. Elsevier
• He was the Guest Editor of the special issue titled "Enabling Technologies and Methodologies for Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining in Smart Grids " for the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.
• He was the Executive Editor of the International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, ISSN 1757-398X (online),1757-3971 (print), Ed. Inderscience Publishers.
• He is the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, ISSN 1757-398X (online),1757-3971 (print), Ed. Inderscience Publishers.
• He was Guest Editor of the special issue titled "Emerging Technologies and Methodologies for Power Systems Reliability and Security Assessment" for the International Journal of Reliability and Safety.
• He was Guest Editor of the special issue titled " Smart Grid Cyber Security" for Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). 
• He was co-Editor with prof. A.F. Zobaa of the book entitled “Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control Systems: The Enabler for Smarter Grids” edited by the Institution of Engineering and Technology
• He was co-Editor with prof. A.F. Zobaa of the book entitled “Computational Intelligence Applications in Smart Grids” edited by the Imperial College Press

Participation in Editorial Boards of Recognised Journals

• He is Member of the Editorial Board of the IET Renewable Power Generation ISSN:1752-1416 (Print), 1752-1424 (Online).
• He is Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Reliability and Safety, ISSN: 1479-3903 (online), 1479-389X (print), Ed. Inderscience Publishers.
• He is Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal on Technology and Economics of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy - ed. Springer.

Assignment of Teaching Duties or Research (fellowship) at Universities and Research Institutes

• Visiting Researcher, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 09/2008-02/2009
• Visiting Researcher, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 02/2010-03/2010
• Visiting Researcher, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 09/2011-10/2011
• Visiting Professor, Département d'Informatique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, 09/2012-09/2012

Direction of Organisations or Institutions of High Quality International Research Centres

From February 2011 to December 2013, he was the Scientific Director of the bureau of the Research Centre on Pure and Applied Mathematic (CRMPA) at the Department of Engineering, University of Sannio.

Achievement of Awards for Scientific Activity

• On October 2008, he was selected as an “early stage” participant to the Humanitarian Technology Challenge, a partnership between the IEEE and the United Nations Foundation targeted at developing technological solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing public health and disaster response workers today. In this prestigious initiative he chaired the “Reliable Electricity” Working Group.
• On February 2009 he was elevated to the Senior Member grade of the IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
• On December 2010, he was awarded by the international journal “Electric Power Systems Research” ed. Elsevier as “Top Review in 2010” for “exceptional contribution through their reviews to the quality of EPSR papers”.

Achievements in Technology Transfers

He was a contributor of the following international patent:

A. Vaccaro, T. H. M. El-Fouly, C. A. Cañizares, K. Bhattacharya, and Gord Ellis, "System, Method and Computer Program for Forecasting Energy Price," US Provisional Patent 61559295, November 14, 2011.

Invited Speeches

He was “invited speaker” at the following international events:

• Strategies and Roadmaps Grid Assessment, Strengths & Vulnerabilities, and Innovative Collaborations, San Francisco, March 2007 organized by the EPRI and the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Talk title: “Application of integrated satellite technologies in large scale power systems monitoring and control”
• North American SynchroPhasor Initiative Working Group Meeting, Montreal, September 2007. Talk title: “Synchrophasor activities in Italy”
• i-PCGRID Workshop 2008 Innovations in Protection and Control for Greater Reliability Infrastructure Development, San Francisco, March 2008. organized by the Missisipi State University, the Quanta Technology and the Pacific Gas & Electric Co Talk title: “Cooperative smart sensor networks for power lines dynamic thermal rating prediction”.
• the 4th International IT Summit Confluence 2013 - The Next Generation Information Technology Summit- 26-27 September 2013, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India, Talk title: “Wide Area Synchronized Smart Grids Monitoring by Bio inspired and Self Organizing Sensor Networks”.
• i-PCGRID Workshop 2014 Innovations in Protection and Control for Greater Reliability Infrastructure Development, San Francisco, March 2014, organized by Missisipi State University, the Quanta Technology and the Pacific Gas & Electric Co, Talk title: “Knowledge Extraction from Power Systems Measurements by Principal Component Analysis”.
• 5th IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT) European 2014 Conference, October 12-15, 2014, Istanbul, talk title:” Enabling Methodologies for Large Scale Reliability Analysis in Smart Grids
• European meets 5G Mobile Networks, II Expert meeting, European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy, Bruxelles, talk title: “Integrating Galileo and 5G services: the enabler for reliable synchronized smart grid monitoring and control”
• 10th International Workshop on Constraint Programming and Decision Making, CoProD 17, University of Texas at El Paso, USA, talk title: “The role of Affine Arithmetic in Robust Optimal Power Flow Analysis”
• 4th International IT Summit Confluence 2013 - The Next Generation Information Technology Summit on 26-27th September 2013 talk title: “Wide Area Synchronized Smart Grids Monitoring by Bio inspired and Self Organizing Sensor Networks”.

Invited Seminars

• On January 2002 he was invited by prof. H Bersini at the Artificial Intelligence research laboratory (IRIDIA) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles to present a seminar on the “Application of local learning based algorithms for real time estimation of power transformer loading capability”
• On January 2009 he was invited by prof. George Gross at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to present a seminar on “The role of self-validated computing in power flow analysis in the presence of data uncertainty”
• On April 2009 he was invited by prof. Gianluca Bontempi at the Département d'Informatique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, to present a seminar on “The role of cooperative sensor networks in smart grids”.
• On June 2012, he was invited by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society to present a Webinar on the "Decentralized Coordination in Smart Grids by Self Organizing Dynamic Fuzzy Agents".
• On September 2012, he was invited by prof. Gianluca Bontempi at the Département d'Informatique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, to present a seminar on “The role of Self Organizing Dynamic Agents for Decentralized Optimization in Smart Grids”
• On June 2013 he was invited by prof. V. Terzija at the University of Manchester, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, to present a seminar on “Wide Area Synchronized Smart Grids Monitoring by Bio inspired and Self Organizing Sensor Networks”.
• On June 2013 he was invited by prof. M. Popov at the Delft University of Technology, Department of Electrical and Sustainable Energy, to present a seminar on “A Decentralized and Self Organizing Architecture for Wide Area Synchronized Monitoring of Smart Grids”.
• On June 2013 he was invited by prof. P. Grefen at the Technical University of Eindhoven, Department of Industrial Engineering, Innovation Sciences & Information Systems, to present a seminar on the “Solution of Mathematical Programming Problems in Smart Grids by Artificial Dynamic Models”.
• On October 2015, he was invited by prof. Federico Milano at the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin, to present a Seminar on "Solving Optimal Power Flow Problems in the presence of Data Uncertainty by Affine Arithmetic".
• On November 2017, he was invited by prof. Enrico Pontelli at the New Mexico State University, Center for Smart Grid Technologies, where he presented a seminaro on “The Role of Self-Validated Numerical Methods in solving Optimal Power Flow Problems in the Presence of Data Uncertainty”
• On December 2018, he was invited by prof. Alberto Berizzi at the Department of energy, Polytechnic of Milan, to present a Seminar on “Solving Uncertain Optimal Power Flow Problems by Affine Arithmetic”

Scientific Coordination of Research Groups

• During 2005 he was Project Tutor of the Mediterranean Agency for Remote Sensing and Environmental Control (MARSec) in the field of critical electrical infrastructures monitoring by satellite based data processing.
• From June 2008 to June 2012 he chaired the Research & Development Committee of the Opera21 Group SpA in the field of Advanced Information and Communications Technologies for Smart Grids
• During 2009 he was Project Tutor of the research centre on the new technologies for environmental diagnostic and sustainable development (TEDASS) in the field of advanced methodologies for massive integration of renewable power generation in electrical grids.
• From January 2009 to December 2014 he was the Task Leader of the strategic scientific initiatives of the Research Consortium on Agent Systems (CORISA) in the field of Smart Energy Networks.
• From January 2010 to December 2013 he has been appointed as Scientific Coordinator of the research activities of the Research Centre on Pure and applied Mathematic in the field of enabling methodologies for power systems optimisation.
• During 2008, he cooperated with the Business Unit Navigation and Integrated Communications of Thales Alenia Space Italia SpA, on the development of cooperative paradigms based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technologies for synchronized measurements on large scale electrical systems.
• From 2005, he cooperated with Dr. Vahid Madani Principal Protection Engineer at the Pacific Gas and Electric Co.  (PG&E) and Chair of the WECC RAS Reliability Subcommittee IEEE Power Engineering Society / Power Systems Relaying Committee C-4 and C-11 Working Groups, on the study of enabling technologies for wide area monitoring and control systems.

Activities and services for international societies

• During 2005 he was invited by the first Editor in Chief of the international journal IEEE trans. On Industrial Informatics (Dott. George Fodor – ABB) in managing the journal activities in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for power systems management and control. 

He was member of the:

• IEEE Working Group C-4, Industry Experiences With System Integrity Protection Schemes (SIPS),
• IEEE Working Group C-11, Power System Protection Testing,
• North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI).
• IEEE Task Force on Autonomic and Trusted Computing of the Emergent Technologies Technical Committee (ETTC) – Computational Intelligence Society (CIS).

He was the Leader of the Task Force “Guidelines for Synchronization Techniques Accuracy and Availability” of the NASPI-Performance & Standards Task Team (PSTT).

He was member of the:

• IEEE working group on Interval Arithmetic
• PES/IEEE Working Group “Power Engineering Careers”.
• CIGRE Working Groups B5.14 “Wide Area Protection & Control Technologies” and B5.43 “Coordination of Protection & Automation for Future Networks”

He is the Chair of the Task Force “Enabling Paradigms for High-performance Computing in Wide Area Monitoring Protective and Control Systems” of the IEEE PSOPE Technologies & Innovation Subcommittee Subcommittee

Activities and services for International conferences

• He was the organizer and co-chair of the Cigre’ International Workshop on Wide Area Monitoring Protection and Control Systems: the Enabler of Smarter Grids.
• He was the international Chair of the 4th International IT Summit Confluence 2013 - The Next Generation Information Technology Summit on 26-27th September 2013
• He organized the Workshop on “Computational Intelligence Techniques for Smart Grids” under the 2011 International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ IEEE).
• He organized and chaired a special section entitled “Emerging Methodologies and Technologies for Large Scale Integration of Renewable Power Generators in Electrical Distribution Systems” under the 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics  (IEEE ISIE 2008)
• He organized two special sections entitled “Microgrids and Smart grids” and “Renewable energies for developing countries” under the “International Conference on Renewable Energies and Power Quality (ICREPQ'13), (ICREPQ'14), (ICREPQ'15).
• He was the program co-Chair of the 2016 IEEE Workshop on Environmental, Energy, and Structural Monitoring Systems, EESMS 2016; Bari; Italy
• He chaired the session “ENVIRONMENT MONITORING” of the 2016 IEEE Workshop on Environmental, Energy, and Structural Monitoring Systems, EESMS 2016; Bari; Italy
• He chaired a session “Intelligent power network transmission technology” of the Smart Grid Technologies Meeting, EMN 2016, August 2016 Berlin, Germany.
• He was the energy track chair of the 2016 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), October 13 –16, 2016 Seattle, USA
• He organized and chaired the special section entitled “Fuzzy Systems on Smart Grid” of the 2017 International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE).
• He was the Area Chair of the “Fuzzy Logic Applications” for the IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE 2017).
• He organized and chaired the Panel entitled “Decentralized architectures for power system protection, estimation and control” of the 2017 IEEE PES General Meeting, Chicago (IL)
• He organized and chaired the Panel entitled “Decentralized Computing in Wide Area Monitoring Protective and Control Systems (WAMPACs)” of the 2018 IEEE PES General Meeting, Portland (OR)

Scientific Refereeing

• He serves as referee for the main international journals and conferences in the area of electrical power and energy systems.
• On November 2011, he was selected by the Romanian National Research as international reviewer of research projects submitted under the funding programs “PARTNERSHIP IN PRIORITY AREAS” and in particular the Joint Applied Research Projects (PCCA).
• On February 2012, he was selected by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) as international reviewer of research projects submitted to the Foundation on the Individual Research Grants.
• On July 2012, he was selected by the Board of Directors of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) as international reviewer for the 2012 evaluation process of research projects submitted to the Foundation.
• During 2006, he reviewed the Report titled "Defense Plans Against Extreme Contingencies" for the Task Force CIGRE TF 38.02.24.
• On July 2012 he was invited by the President of the Group of Experts of the area 09 -Industrial and Information Engineering- of the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) to join the referees committee for the Research Quality Assessment of the Italian Universities and Research Centres (VQR 2004-2010).
• On October 2013 he was selected as scientific referee of the projects submitted under the “Bando per la realizzazione di progetti di ricerca industriale e/o sviluppo sperimentale e/o innovazione nell’ambito del Distretto tecnologico navale e nautico del Friuli Venezia Giulia”
• On June 2013 he was invited by the Romanian Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding to serve as evaluator for the Partnership Programme - Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA 2013. The program, as part of the National Plan for Research, Development and Innovation 2007-2013, coordinated by Ministry of National Education, finances joint experimental research and technological development projects, having as results products, technologies and innovative services aimed to solving and implementing solutions to complex socio-economic problems of national priority. 
• On January 2013 he was invited by the Télécom École de Management ( Telecom Business School )  Évry, France to serve as referee for research and industrial projects.
• On April 2015 he chaired the evaluation panel of the European Coordinated Research on Long-term Challenges in Information and Communication Sciences & Technologies ERA-Net (CHIST-ERA) - call 2014. 
• He was invited as referee for the Italian Research Evaluation assessment for the period 2011-14 (VQR 2011-14)

University Services

• From 2002 to 2007 he was elected member of the Engineering Faculty Council of the University of Sannio.
• From 2007 to 2013, he was elected member of the board of Directors of the University of Sannio.
• From November 2009 to October 2013, he was the Rector's Delegate for Innovations in Technological Systems.
• From October 2011 to October 2013, he was the Rector's Delegate for Safety and Security issues.

Courses Taught

He lectured the following courses at the University of Sannio:

• Industrial Electrical Power Systems MSc degree in Energy engineering - 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic year 2008/2009 (6 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Electrical Power Systems Automation, MSc degree in Energy engineering- 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic years: 2003/2004, 2004/2005, 2005/2006 (3 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Power Systems Diagnostic and Reliability, MSc degree in Energy engineering - 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic year 2006/2007 (6 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33
• Reliability and Diagnostic of Electric Systems, MSc degree in Energy engineering, 2nd Degree Course (Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Ingegneria Energetica), Academic year 2010/2011 (6 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Basics of Electric Machinery 2, MSc degree in Energy engineering- 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic years: 2004/2005, 2005/2006, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, (3 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/31.
• Electric Machinery 2, MSc degree in Energy engineering- 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic years: 2008/2009,2009/2010,2010/2011 (3 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/31.
• Electric power plants, MSc degree in Civil Engineering- 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Civile). Academic years: 2002/2003, 2003/2004, 2004/2005, 2005/2006, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2008/2009 (3 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Electrical Energy, Economy and Environmental, MSc degree in Energy engineering- 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic years: 2004/2005, 2005/2006, 2006/2007 (3 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Basic Electric Circuit Theory, MSc degree in Computer Engineering - 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Informatica) Academic year 2004/2005 (6 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/31.
•  Power Systems Complements MSc degree in Energy engineering- 2st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Ingegneria Energetica), Academic Year 2009/2010 (6 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Power Systems Operation and Planning, MSc degree in Energy engineering- 2st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic year 2011/2012, 2012/2013, 2014/2015,2016/2017, 2017/18  (1 Modulo da 6 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Industrial Electrical Power Systems MSc degree in Energy engineering - 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea di Base in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic year 2013/2014-2014/2015,2016/2017, 2017/18 (9 CFU), S.S.D. ING-IND/33.
• Safety Engineering MSc degree in Energy engineering - 1st Degree Course (Corso di Laurea di Base in Ingegneria Energetica). Academic year 2016/2017 (6 CFU).

• On 2004/05 he lectured the course "Satellite Systems Architectures" ("Architetture dei Sistemi Satellitari") under the Master "Technologies for Storage and Management of Massive Satellite Data for Earth Observation" ("Tecnologie di archiviazione e gestione di dati satellitari massivi per l’osservazione della terra –TARGET") organized by the University of Sannio and the Scientific and Technological Park of Salerno and the Campania Interior (PSTSA).

  On 2003/04 he lectured the course "Disaster management in Electric Power systems" under the II level Master "Experts for the Geological and Environmental Risk in Disaster Management" ("Esperto in Rischi Geologici ed Ambientali nel Disaster Management") organized by the University of Sannio.

  On 2005/06 he was appointed as member of the Board of the Professor of the first level Master in "Hydrogen Energy" organized by the University of Sannio. Under this Master he lectured the following courses:

• Control and protection of distribution network in the presence of Distributed Generation ("Il controllo e la protezione di reti di distribuzione in presenza di generazione distribuita");
• Distribution network planning in the presence of Distributed Generation ("La pianificazione dei sistemi elettrici di distribuzione in presenza di generazione distribuita");
• Fuel Cells based Hybrid electric powertrains ("Sistemi di propulsione a trazione elettrica azionati da celle a combustibile").