Harikrishna Rao Mohan Rao

Area of Study / Keywords

Advanced Alarm Systems Industrial Alarm Monitoring Process Diagnostics

About

Harikrishna Rao (Hari) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Advanced Alarm Management and Design Group, under the supervision of Dr. Tongwen Chen, and guided by Dr. Sirish L. Shah. His research focuses on developing advanced data-driven solutions to improve industrial alarm systems. He aims to develop reliable decision-support systems that enhance operations and reduce operator workload in the process industries. He holds a B.Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kerala, where he was awarded the Proficiency Prize for the Best outgoing student (equivalent to Chancellor's Leadership Medal at the UofA). Hari joined the graduate program at the University of Alberta with over seven years of industrial experience in process control and automation, alarm management, and fault detection. He holds two patent-approved invention disclosures classified as trade secrets in the field of early detection and prediction (online implementation) of abnormality and component failures using process data. 

Quote of the month: "A point put across with laughter is well remembered" - L. E. Gads, FoE, UofA.

Research

Research Interests: Industrial Alarm Monitoring, Advanced Alarm Systems, and Process Diagnostics

• H. R. M. Rao, T. Chen, and S. L. Shah, "Online alarm flood classification via deterministic fingerprinting with combinatorial hashing: A robust and scalable framework," Chemical Engineering Research and Design, vol. 224, pp. 373-385, Dec. 2025.
• H. R. M. Rao, T. Chen, and S. L. Shah, "Advances in the smart data analytics framework: Integrating data extraction and automated reporting," 2024 IEEE 3rd Industrial Electronics Society Annual On-Line Conference (ONCON), Beijing, China, 2024, Art. No. 10931649.
• Y. Rahimi, H. R. M. Rao, and T. Chen, "Optimizing alarm design: A comparison of delay-timers, counters, and time-deadbands," 2024 IEEE 3rd Industrial Electronics Society Annual On-Line Conference (ONCON), Beijing, China, 2024, Art. No. 10931662.
• H. R. M. Rao, B. Zhou, K. Brown, T. Chen, and S. L. Shah, "Alarm correlation analysis with applications to industrial alarm management", Control Engineering Practice, vol. 143, 105812, Feb. 2024.
  
• H. O. Garcés, B. Aballay, H. R. M. Rao, T. Chen, and S. L. Shah,  "An Unsupervised Machine Learning Approach for Process Monitoring by Visual Analytics". IFAC-PapersOnLine, 58(14), pp.847-854, 2024.
• N. Tamascelli, H. R. M. Rao, V. Cozzani, N. Paltrinieri, and T. Chen, "Online Classification of Alarm Floods Using a Word2vec Algorithm", IECON 2023- 49th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Singapore, Singapore, 2023, pp. 1-6.
• H. R. M. Rao, S. L. Shah, and T. Chen, “Application of Alarm Correlations in Root Cause Diagnosis of Plant-wide Oscillations”, IFAC-PapersOnLine, 56(2), pp.7154-7159, 2023. Presented at the 22nd IFAC World Congress 2023, Yokohama, Japan.
• H. R. M. Rao, B. Zhou, T. Chen and S. L. Shah, “Discovery of Alarm Correlations Based on Pattern Mining and Network Analysis”, American Control Conference (ACC), 2022, pp. 2467-2472, Atlanta, USA, 8-10 Jun. 2022.

• A. K. Vinayak and H. R. M. Rao, “Engineering education: Nurturing a holistic skill set for future success through an introductory course”, Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA-ACEG) Conference 2024, Edmonton, Canada, 15-20, Jun. 2024.

Select Recognitions

• 2025 Leonard E. Gads Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award (Faculty of Engineering, University of Alberta): Teaching
• 2025 Graduate Student Teaching Award (Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Alberta): Teaching
• 2025 Graduate Student Service Award (Graduate Students' Association, University of Alberta): Leadership, Community Service, Research, and Teaching.
• 2024 ISA Student Volunteer of the Year Award (Celebrating Global Excellence Award, International Society of Automation): Leadership
• 2024 Graduate Student Teaching Award (Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Alberta): Teaching
• 2023 IEEE Systems Council James O. Gray Graduate Scholarship: Research and Academics
• Bob Connell Scholarship for 2023-2024 by the International Society of Automation (ISA) Edmonton section: Leadership, Volunteering
• J Gordin Kaplan Graduate Student Award, 2023 (Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, formerly FGSR, University of Alberta): Research

Teaching

Teaching Assistant for the following courses:

• Lead Teaching Assistant: ENGG 160 Introduction to Engineering Design, Communication, and Profession - Winter 2024
• ECE 460 Control Systems II - Winter 2024
• ECE 209 Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering (Lab) - Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring/Summer 2021, Winter 2021
• ENGG 160 Introduction to Engineering Design, Communication, and Profession - Winter 2023, Winter 2022 (Control System Architecture Design)
• ECE 360 Control Systems I - Fall 2021

He also worked as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Intersectional Studies at the University of Alberta for Fall 2024/Winter 2025, under the supervision of Dr. Janice Miller-Young, Faculty of Engineering (Project Sponsor: Dr. Ivan Fair, Vice Dean, Faculty of Engineering).

• Campus Resources under Vice-Provost and Dean of Students
• Helpful Resources for Students
• Wellness Resources from the University of Alberta Students' Union (UASU)
• Bright breaks: Various mini-powered guided breaks and activities - Free for UofA students and Faculty.
• Mindfulness Resources from UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center