Ryan (Yunwei) Li, PhD, IEEE Fellow

Area of Study / Keywords

Engineering Department Executive Energy Systems Power Electronics Microgrids Smart Grids Electric Drives

About

Dr. Li is an University of Alberta Senior Engineering Research Chair, and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received the Bachelor degree from Tianjin University, China, in 2002, and PhD degree from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2006. In 2005, Dr. Li was a Visiting Scholar with Aalborg University, Denmark. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ryerson University, Canada. Dr. Li also worked at Rockwell Automation Canada as a R&D Engineer, before he joined University of Alberta in 2007.

Dr. Li is a Fellow of IEEE. He currently serves as the Vice President for Products of IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS). He was the Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics Letters 2019-2023. He also served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, and IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics. Dr. Li was the general chair of IEEE Energy Conversion Congress of Exposition (ECCE) in 2020. He is the AdCom Member at Large for IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) 2021-2023. Dr. Li received the Nagamori Foundation Award in 2022 and the Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from IEEE PELS in 2013. He is recognized as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher.

Research

Research Interests

Power electronic technology plays a vital role in today’s energy systems in terms of efficient energy conversion, integration of dispersed energy resources, electric vehicles, etc. My research areas mainly involve power electronics and their applications in renewable energy, distributed generation (DG), microgrid, electric vehicles, electric motor drives, and custom power devices (for power quality improvement). The research interests of my group include power converter topologies, pulse-width-modulation (PWM) techniques, modeling and digital control of power electronics, grid synchronization techniques, etc.

Current Research

Grid integration of renewable energy systems (PV, wind) and energy storage systems.

Modeling, control and energy management of microgrid and active/smart distribution systems.

Ancillary services through grid-interfacing power converters.

High power converters and industrial drives.