Nick Sahinidis is the Butler Family Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. His current research activities are at the interface between computer science and operations research, with applications in various engineering and scientific areas, including: global optimization of mixed-integer nonlinear programs: theory, algorithms, and software; informatics problems in chemistry and biology; process and energy systems engineering. Sahinidis has served on the editorial boards of many leading journals and in various positions within AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers). He has also served on numerous positions within INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences), including Chair of the INFORMS Optimization Society. He received an NSF CAREER award, the INFORMS Computing Society Prize, the MOS Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize, the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award, the Constantin Carathéodory Prize, and the National Award and Gold Medal from the Hellenic Operational Research Society. Sahinidis is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of AIChE and INFORMS.

Maryam Saeedifard received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, in 1998 and 2002, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 2008, all in electrical engineering.

From 2007 to 2008, she was with ABB Corporate Research Center, Dattwil-Baden, Switzerland, working in the power electronic systems group. She joined Purdue University in January 2010, where she served as an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Since January 2014, she has been on the ECE faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Her main research focus has been in the area of Power Electronics and Applications of Power Electronics in Power Systems and Transportation Systems. She has served on the technical program committees of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC), and IEEE Industrial Electronics Conference (IECON). She is an editor for IEEE Trans. on Sustainable Energy, IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, and IEEE Trans. on Power Electronics.

Ajeet Rohatgi received the B.S. (E.E.) degree from Indian Institute of Technology in 1971, the M.S. (Materials Engineering) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1973, and the Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Lehigh University in 1977. He joined the Westinghouse Research and Development Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1977 and became a Westinghouse Fellow while working on the science and technology of photovoltaic and microelectronic devices. Rohatgi joined the ECE faculty at Georgia Tech in 1985 and started a program on photovoltaics, which has become one of the best in the country. He has become an internationally recognized leader in photovoltaics. He is the founding director of the first university-based DOE Center of Excellence in Photovoltaic Research and Education. He is the author of more than 300 publications and holds 10 U.S. patents. Rohatgi has received numerous awards and distinctions from professional societies and Georgia Tech. He is the founder and CTO for Suniva.

Rusty Roberts is the Director of the Aerospace, Transportation and Advanced Systems (ATAS) Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). ATAS develops advanced systems concepts, builds system prototypes, and performs research on technologies related to aerospace, transportation, power and energy, threat systems, and food processing. A nationally recognized expert in test and evaluation, Roberts has held the position of the President of the International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA). He also started and presently leads a GTRI-wide test and evaluation initiative that brought together the resources to provide Science & Technology support to the Office of the Secretary of Defense Test Resource Management Center. Mr. Roberts has also worked with U.S. government officials to establish key requirements for the testing of U.S. electronic countermeasures against surface-to-air missile threats and has been able to provide solutions developed by GTRI. Solutions included the threat replica of a medium range surface-to-air missile (SAM) acquisition radar for the U.S. Army and the Advanced Airborne Interceptor Simulator (AAIS) for the U.S. Air Force. He also led the efforts that developed the Missle-on-a-Mountain program at the Electronic Combat Range in China Lake, California. This one-of-a-kind simulation facility has been called a key national asset in testing electronic countermeasures against surface-to-air missle systems. The facility is in high demand by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and allied air forces. Prior to joining GTRI, Mr. Roberts served as an active duty U.S. Army Signal Corps officer for ten years, with assignments at Fort Gordon, GA and Kaiserslautern, Germany. His last assignment was at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering teaching Electronic Circuit Design. During his tour at West Point he became the Course Director for the Senior-level, two-semester electronics course for the Department. Mr. Roberts continued to serve in the Army Reserve after leaving Active Duty while at GTRI. Roberts holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from West Point, a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Maste