A Panel Discussion by some of the co-editors and authors of Springer Nature Publishing's

Santa Clara Valley IEEE Power & Energy and Industry Applications Societies invites you to a Cal Alumni of Silicon Valley Energy Forum
Co hosted by SF/OEB PES and SFBAC Life Members.  Join us in person June 16 in Palo Alto for a half day energy forum:

Time: 10:00 AM TO 2:00 PM PST

Cost:  LESS 25% IEEE discount

 RSVP Registration is at the Cal Alumni site:  Reserve Now

 Hint:  Enter the code CASVJUNE25 during Eventbrite registration in the “discount code” box at the bottom of the Eventbrite/payment page for and click “apply” before completing payment. 

Note:  Registration is effectively non refundable.  The Eventbrite site needs your title and company name for badges, but it is your option to join the Cal Alumni mailing list.

PES/IAS Chapter Page: https://r6.ieee.org/scv-pesias/

Reservation URL:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/energy-at-a-crossroads-a-cal-alumni-of-silicon-valley-energy-forum-tickets-1988570674418

About the talk: 

California sits at the center of three colliding forces: surging electricity demand driven by data centers and electrification, rising costs that are squeezing households and businesses, and wildfire risk that is reshaping how utilities build, maintain, and protect the grid.

What does this mean for rates, reliability, and the future of the state's energy system? And what can actually be done about it?

 Cal Alumni of Silicon Valley is hosting a half-day energy forum bringing together academic research, alumni perspectives, and industry experience. Professor Severin Borenstein, Faculty Director of the Energy Institute at Haas, will deliver a keynote on how data centers are affecting electricity markets and what practical steps exist to make energy more affordable. An alumni panel will explore energy topics from across the Cal community. And PG&E will present on the wildfire mitigation strategies they are deploying to protect California's grid.

Whether you work in energy, tech, policy, or are simply a ratepayer who wants to understand what is driving your bill, this is a conversation worth being part of.

Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Time: 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Location: Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP

Address: 1400 Page Mill Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94304

PES/IAS web site

Agenda:

• 12:30 Chair Makes Announcements and Introduces the Speaker
• 12:35-1:15 Speaker gives presentation
• 1:15-1:30 Q&A by the speaker, and final comments by the Chair

As the adoption of renewable energy continues to accelerate worldwide, integrating these resources into the electric power grid presents both significant opportunities and complex technical challenges. This presentation explores the evolving role of renewable energy technologies—including photovoltaic (PV) systems, wind farms, and battery energy storage systems—in supporting a reliable, resilient, and sustainable electric grid.

Attendees will gain insight into the operational challenges associated with renewable energy integration, such as intermittency, variability, voltage regulation, and grid stability. The session will highlight the critical role of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in addressing these challenges and enhancing the value of renewable energy resources.

The presentation will conclude with a discussion of modern grid management techniques and future opportunities for integrating high levels of renewable energy while maintaining power system performance, reliability, and resilience.

This session is ideal for engineers, researchers, students, utility professionals, energy developers, and anyone interested in the future of renewable energy and grid modernization.

The Science Behind Hurricane Formation and Lifecycle

Around the world, hurricanes reshape coastlines, disrupt lives, and threaten communities. In this talk Quinton Lawton, ASP Postdoctoral Fellow II, will discuss the basic science behind the formation, growth, and lifecycle of these powerful storms. A major focus of the talk will be the groundbreaking research currently being done to better predict hurricane formation.  Long before these storms make landfall, they often begin as smaller weather disturbances known as African easterly waves. Understanding how these atmospheric precursors form and grow is critical for predicting extreme weather and mitigating its impacts. We will also explore recent advances in meteorological prediction, including new advancements in Artificial Intelligence-driven forecast systems. 

The presentation will conclude with a look at the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. We will discuss how global patterns like El Niño influence the behavior of African easterly waves and hurricanes from year to year. Understanding this connection provides a clearer outlook for what the tropics might have in store over the coming months.

with Shin Young Jeong, faculty member of the Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research, University of Central Florida.

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 16, 6pm - 7 pm Pacific Time

Abstract:

The transition to renewable energy has increased the need for reliable, large-scale storage to balance intermittent generation with continuous demand. Thermal energy storage (TES) offers a cost-effective solution by capturing excess energy as heat and releasing it when needed, supporting long-duration storage and grid stability. Unlike batteries, TES can scale to industrial levels, provide process heat, and deliver electricity through power cycles. Recent advances use abundant, low-cost materials such as sand-like particles serving as both heat transfer media and storage. This talk will highlight emerging TES technologies and their role in a resilient, decarbonized energy future.

Join IEEE SSCS YP and the IEEE Hawaii Jt. SSCS/EDS Chapter for an evening with members of the SSCS Distinguished Lecturer roster. The program will include three condensed talks from select SSCS Distinguished Lecturers. Don’t miss this chance to see widely recognized experts in our field present their knowledge and experiences through high quality and highly polished presentations. Consider requesting an SSCS DL for your local chapter. See the Distinguished Lecturer Program page on the SSCS website for more information.

The Joint Northern Virginia/Washington PES Chapter is pleased to host Usama Ahmed and Jimmy Ianni of TS Conductor Corp., to speak on the topic of Aluminum Encapsulated Carbon Core (AECC) conductors, an advanced technology in high voltage transmission designed to enhance performance, efficiency, and reliability of overhead power lines.  We invite you all to join us online on June 17, 2026, from 12:00pm to 1:30pm EST. Registration required. The event is free to attend.

 SDIEEE EXCOM Meeting

Executive Committee meeting to discuss all San Diego IEEE activities.  All IEEE members welcome to attend. Please RSVP. 

• 5:30 pm - 6:00 pm,    Networking and food!
• 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm,    meeting (in person and/or remote)
• Meeting Adjourned 

To add to the agenda, please email upalmahbub@yahoo.com.   

Join us for the upcoming technical talk —attend in person at Stockman’s Restaurant or virtually via Microsoft Teams 

Title:

Electric Capacity Development – Concept to Reality

Abstract:

Development of a natural gas peaking plant.  Reviewing the options, building support, financing, bidding, construction, and start-up.

Speaker 1: Stephen Boorman, PE
Interim General Manager
Idaho Falls Power

Stephen Boorman, PE, has served as the Assistant General Manager for Idaho Falls Power since September 2018 and is has been the Interim General Manager since August of 2025.Stephen has been in engineering and management for 36 years, with 30 of those years working for
electric utilities. His previous positions have included Light Department Director for the City of Cheney, Washington, City Administrator for the City of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, and Engineer for Missoula Electric Coop. He also worked for the Boeing Company after graduating with a degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Montana State University. With his extensive experience in engineering, city planning and utility operations, in his role as Interim. General Manager, Boorman focuses on engineering with utility planning and operations. He also
supports internal staff needs across various Idaho Falls Power and Fiber Divisions, working both internally and externally to support collaborations with other City departments and with customers.

During his career, Stephen has managed projects ranging from golf course sprinkler upgrades to multi-year, multi-million dollar water system upgrades. For electric utilities, he has managed projects from sub-station upgrades to hydroelectric project upgrades. Stephen serves, or has served on a number of industry trade groups and civic organizations, including the Public Power Council (PPC), Idaho Consumer Owned Utility Association (ICUA), Northwest Requirements Utilities (NRU), Rotary, and the Idaho Damage Prevention Board. Stephen was raised in Western Montana. He worked on a ranch in high school, worked as a logger to pay for college, and enjoys almost any outdoor activity. He is also an advocate for the sport of wrestling and has competed, coached, or officiated the sport for almost 40 years. He has been married to his wife
Cyndy for over 35 years; he has three married children, one daughter, two sons, and five grandchildren.

Speaker 2: AJ Morin PE, Systems Engineer, Idaho Falls Power

AJ Morin, PE, has served as the Systems Engineer for Idaho Falls Power since August 2024. AJ has been in engineering and management for 25 years, with 15 of those years working for electric utilities. His previous positions have included Sr. Electrical Engineer for Eugene
Water and Electric Board, Eugene, Oregon, Sr. Project Manager for Power Engineers, Hailey, Idaho, and President of Firefly, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah which is an electrical engineering company specializing in control systems integration and electrical contracting after
graduating with a master’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At Idaho Falls Power, AJ focuses on engineering with utility planning, generation and operations. AJ also focuses on developing strong team relations with the electricians,
mechanics, substation techs, linemen, meter techs, generation and dispatch. AJ leads the engineering group to support all departments within Idaho Falls Power. AJ was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Las Vegas, NV. After graduating high school in Las Vegas, AJ returned to Utah and completed a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Utah and received the outstanding senior award. AJ enjoys outdoor
activities including hunting, fishing, hiking, skiing, and dog training. AJ has trained many competitive field trial dogs and is now training a Belgian Malinois for scent detection and agility work.

Please join us for a warm and engaging virtual event as we welcome Seattle chapter's new IEEE PES Women in Power Representative, Bosong Li.

Bosong will host a collaborative conversation where we invite you to share the kinds of activities, topics, and opportunities you’d like to see from Seattle chapter’s IEEE PES Women in Power (WiP) community. This is a great chance to help shape future programs and ensure they reflect the interests and needs of our community.

Your voice is valuable—and we’d love to hear your ideas.

For more information about Women in Power, please visit their website (https://ieee-pes.org/about-pes/women-in-power/) and LinkedIn page (https://www.linkedin.com/company/ieee-pes-women-in-power).

We look forward to connecting with you on June 18th at 5:00 PM!

Title: Twisted Signals for ISAC via OAM Vortex Beams

Abstract: Electromagnetic waves are characterized by their amplitude, frequency, and state of polarization -- also referred to as spin angular momentum (SAM), associated with circular polarization and recognized for over two centuries. In contrast, over the past three decades, growing attention has been directed toward orbital angular momentum (OAM), which arises from helical (twisted) phase fronts and provides an additional degree of freedom through its orthogonal modal structure. In this talk, we explore the use of OAM for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), with the goal of enhancing spectral efficiency and spatial resolution in automotive scenarios. Unlike conventional uniform circular array (UCA)-based implementations, our approach employs a uniform linear array (ULA) with traveling-wave antennas to synthesize multiple Laguerre-Gaussian vortex beams. The proposed system embeds communication data within radar waveforms while enabling joint estimation of target position and velocity using radar-only frames. An OAM-based mode-division multiplexing strategy is used to separate sensing and communication functionalities, ensuring reliable parameter recovery. We conclude with perspectives on the future of ISAC systems.
[Joint work with Wanghan Lv]

Speaker: Dr. Kumar Vijay Mishra

Kumar Vijay Mishra (S’08-M’15-SM’18) obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and M.S. in mathematics from The University of Iowa in 2015, and M.S. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 2012, while working on NASA’s Global Precipitation Mission Ground Validation (GPM-GV) weather radars. He received his B. Tech. summa cum laude (Gold Medal, Honors) in electronics and communication engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur (NITH), India in 2003. He is a Senior Fellow at the United States DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory; Research Scientist at the Institute for Systems Research, The University of Maryland, College Park under the ARL-ArtIAMAS program; 2026 BEL Endowed Visiting Chair Professor in Radar Systems at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Technical Adviser to Singapore-based automotive radar start-up Hertzwell; and honorary Research Fellow at SnT - Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg. Previously, he had research appointments at the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Bengaluru; IIHR - Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA; Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Cambridge, MA; Qualcomm, San Jose; and Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr. Mishra has served as the Distinguished Lecturer (DL) of various societies: IEEE Communications Society (2023-2024), IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS) (2023-2024, 2025-2026), IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2023-2025, 2025-2027), and IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (2024-2025). He has been a Virtual DL of IEEE Future Networks Initiative (2022) and Traveling Lecturer of Optica (2025-). He is the recipient of the IEEE AESS Harry Rowe Mimno Award (2026), SAE International Award for Excellence in Innovation (2025), IEEE Signal Processing Society Pierre-Simon Laplace Early Career Technical Achievement Award (2024), Special Mention for the IEEE AESS M. Barry Carlton Award (2023), IET Premium Best Paper Prize (2021), IEEE T-AES Outstanding Editor (2021, 2023, 2024, 2025), U. S. National Academies Harry Diamond Distinguished Fellowship (2018-2021), American Geophysical Union Editors' Citation for Excellence (2019), Royal Meteorological Society Quarterly Journal Editor's Prize (2017), Viterbi Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015, 2016), Lady Davis Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017), DRDO LRDE Scientist of the Year Award (2006), NITH Director’s Gold Medal (2003), and NITH Best Student Award (2003). He has received Best Paper Awards at IEEE MLSP 2019 and IEEE ACES Symposium 2019.

Dr. Mishra is Chair (2023-2026) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Commission C, Chair (2025-) of IEEE AESS Technical Working Group on Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC-TWG), and Vice-Chair (2021-present) of the IEEE Synthetic Aperture Standards Committee, which is the first SPS standards committee. He has been Chair (2023-2025) of the IEEE SPS Synthetic Apertures Technical Working Group. He has been an elected member of three technical committees of IEEE SPS: SPCOM, SAM, and ASPS, and IEEE AESS Radar Systems Panel. He is Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of River Rapids Series in Radar Systems, Signal Processing, Antennas and Electromagnetics (2025-), Editor (Deputy EiC) of Radio Science (2025-), Senior Area Editor of IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2024-), and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems (2020-) and IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (2023-). He has been a lead/guest editor of several special issues in journals such as IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, and IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing. He is the lead co-editor of several books on signal processing and radar: Signal Processing for Joint Radar-Communications (Wiley-IEEE Press, 2024), Next-Generation Cognitive Radar Systems (IET Press Electromagnetics and Radar Series, 2023), Advances in Weather Radar Volumes 1, 2 & 3 (IET Press Electromagnetics and Radar Series, 2023), and Handbook of Statistics 54: Multidimensional Signal Processing (Elsevier). His research interests include radar systems, signal processing, remote sensing, and electromagnetics.

Location and Parking: Bellevue City Hall. 

• There is complimentary parking in the City Hall visitor parking lot on 110th Ave NE.
• Vehicles will be towed if they park in the reserved spots for King County Metro (KCM) and Sound Transit
• Parking is extremely limited in the visitor lot and it quickly fills up.
• Overflow parking is available in the P3 staff garage starting at 4:00 p.m. on weekdays.
• On busy evenings, we recommend attendees save time by driving directly to the P3 staff garage
• Navigate to 451 112th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
• Enter and park on level P3
• There is a door in the garage that takes you to the concourse elevator
• There is no charge for parking in both the visitor lot and the P3 staff garage.
• We recommend keeping the parking gate ticket in the vehicle as it is needed to leave.

Abstract: Electromagnetic waves are characterized by their amplitude, frequency, and state of polarization -- also referred to as spin angular momentum (SAM), associated with circular polarization and recognized for over two centuries. In contrast, over the past three decades, growing attention has been directed toward orbital angular momentum (OAM), which arises from helical (twisted) phase fronts and provides an additional degree of freedom through its orthogonal modal structure. In this talk, we explore the use of OAM for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), with the goal of enhancing spectral efficiency and spatial resolution in automotive scenarios. Unlike conventional uniform circular array (UCA)-based implementations, our approach employs a uniform linear array (ULA) with traveling-wave antennas to synthesize multiple Laguerre-Gaussian vortex beams. The proposed system embeds communication data within radar waveforms while enabling joint estimation of target position and velocity using radar-only frames. An OAM-based mode-division multiplexing strategy is used to separate sensing and communication functionalities, ensuring reliable parameter recovery. We conclude with perspectives on the future of ISAC systems.

[Joint work with Wanghan Lv]

Bio:
Kumar Vijay Mishra (S’08-M’15-SM’18) obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and M.S. in mathematics from The University of Iowa in 2015, and M.S. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 2012, while working on NASA’s Global Precipitation Mission Ground Validation (GPM-GV) weather radars. He received his B. Tech. summa cum laude (Gold Medal, Honors) in electronics and communication engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur (NITH), India in 2003. He is a Senior Fellow at the United States DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory; Research Scientist at the Institute for Systems Research, The University of Maryland, College Park under the ARL-ArtIAMAS program; 2026 BEL Endowed Visiting Chair Professor in Radar Systems at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Technical Adviser to Singapore-based automotive radar start-up Hertzwell; and honorary Research Fellow at SnT - Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, University of Luxembourg. Previously, he had research appointments at the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Bengaluru; IIHR - Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA; Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Cambridge, MA; Qualcomm, San Jose; and Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr. Mishra has served as the Distinguished Lecturer (DL) of various societies: IEEE Communications Society (2023-2024), IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS) (2023-2024, 2025-2026), IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2023-2025, 2025-2027), and IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (2024-2025). He has been a Virtual DL of IEEE Future Networks Initiative (2022) and Traveling Lecturer of Optica (2025-). He is the recipient of the IEEE AESS Harry Rowe Mimno Award (2026), SAE International Award for Excellence in Innovation (2025), IEEE Signal Processing Society Pierre-Simon Laplace Early Career Technical Achievement Award (2024), Special Mention for the IEEE AESS M. Barry Carlton Award (2023), IET Premium Best Paper Prize (2021), IEEE T-AES Outstanding Editor (2021, 2023, 2024, 2025), U. S. National Academies Harry Diamond Distinguished Fellowship (2018-2021), American Geophysical Union Editors' Citation for Excellence (2019), Royal Meteorological Society Quarterly Journal Editor's Prize (2017), Viterbi Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015, 2016), Lady Davis Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017), DRDO LRDE Scientist of the Year Award (2006), NITH Director’s Gold Medal (2003), and NITH Best Student Award (2003). He has received Best Paper Awards at IEEE MLSP 2019 and IEEE ACES Symposium 2019.

New and mid-level professionals will benefit from this presentation on the journey of engineers from an experienced engineer and recruiter at the Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC), Sally McGehee.  Organization and industry leaders are invited to gain Ms McGehee's insider strategies on how to engage with the Department of Navy (DON) as well.

Celebrate International Women in Engineering Day 2026 with San Diego IEEE and Sally McGehee, through her authentic stories and examples on the opportunities within the DON especially for women.

This session will engage all the participants through Ms. McGehee's insider insight as an engineer, as well as her recruiter role with the NIWC Pacific New Professional program, where she interviews EE, CS, ME, CE students and graduates and visits select university career fairs across the country to recruit engineering students.

In this talk, I will talk about some hardware/software work my group has done in the area of stochastic computing-based machine learning acceleration. Stochastic computing or SC is an approximate, stream-based computing paradigm enabling extremely area-efficient implementations of basic arithmetic operations such as multiplication and addition. I will talk about the suitability of the SC to the machine learning/event processing workloads, how to deal with its inherent approximate nature and briefly discuss few chip prototypes that leverage both logic and in-memory implementations of SC-based accelerators for dense as well as a sparse compute. 

IEEE Annual Summer Top Golf Event - Boise Section
Hosted by the Computer Society, Women in Engineering & Young Professionals Chapters.

Join us for the IEEE Summer Golf Event, hosted in collaboration with the Young Professionals (YP), Women in Engineering (WIE), and Computer Society (CS) Chapters. This is a great opportunity to network with fellow IEEE members, enjoy a round of golf, and strengthen connections across our chapters. All skill levels welcome!

Event Details:

• Date: June 25, 2026
• Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM (local time)
• Location: Top Golf, Meridian

Rules & Regulations

1. Eligibility – Open to all IEEE members, students, and professionals in the STEM community. Non-members are warmly encouraged to attend and experience the IEEE network firsthand.
2. Registration – Early registration is strongly encouraged as spots are limited. Register online in advance to secure your place. Walk-ins will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to availability.

EMC Scan Technologies"

Near field scanning is a widely known and well received method for component, module and system EMC characterization. One specific emission scan technology, called the NF EMI scan, is the most common scan technology, but the immunity scan is relatively less known and less widely used. Three immunity and two emission scan technologies will be presented: ESD Scan, RF Immunity Scan, Current Spreading (CSP) and Phase Measurement Scan.

ESD scan is a very effective scan technique to debug or pre-screen components or modules that are more likely to cause problems (specially soft failures) before they are integrated to a system. Its main goal is localizing weak spots or traces causing ESD gun test failures with a well-controlled disturbance source.

RF Immunity Scan is very similar to ESD scan in concept, but it is a narrow-band scan while the ESD scan is a wide-band.

Most currents injected by an ESD gun follow the intended path by design, but a small amount causing system upset can flow through an unexpected route. CSP (Current Spreading) is a visualization technique for surface current flows, which identifies unexpected current paths and can verify ESD protection design.

Phase information helps improving accuracies of modeling of EUT's for simulation or can be directly used for specific applications. Specific application of the phase information will be introduced after brief review of simultaneous magnitude and phase measurement in time and frequency domain.

Power electronics is a foundational technology that drives a wide range of important and emerging applications including cloud computing, wireless communications, robotics, and smart energy systems. By systematically managing the increased complexity in materials, circuits, and systems, new opportunities are created to greatly advance the functionality and performance of power electronics systems.

This speech provides a few examples to illustrate the potential of managed complexity in power electronics design. These include: 1) modular and scalable architecture for systematically managed complexity in high performance circuits; 2) artificial intelligence and machine learning for systematically managed complexity in passive component modeling. This managed complexity approach addresses key challenges in emerging applications by overcoming traditional design barriers from new angles and redefining how power electronics are conceived and implemented in complex systems.

IEEE Orange County PES/IAS Chapter's ExCom meeting

All IEEE OC PES/IAS Chapter members are requested to attend this meeting. 

To AVOID unauthorized attendance you MUST REGISTER for this event so that you can be sent the meeting link.

A professional networking and community-building event organized by the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group in Hawaii. The event aims to bring together students, researchers, and industry professionals to foster mentorship, technical exchange, and career development in engineering and related STEM fields.

The event will include a short welcome session, informal networking, and light refreshments to encourage conversation and engagement among attendees. By providing a relaxed and inclusive environment, the activity supports WIE’s mission of promoting diversity, inclusion, and retention of women and underrepresented groups in engineering.

July Executive Committee Meeting

This talk presents advances in power management of power electronic converters within modern microgrids, emphasizing efficiency, stability, and resilience under dynamic operating conditions. It highlights the role of real-time validation techniques, including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations, which enable rapid testing of control strategies without risking physical assets. The discussion extends to power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) testbeds, where actual power devices interact with simulated networks, offering a more accurate representation of real-world performance. These approaches significantly reduce development time while improving reliability and scalability of microgrid systems. The talk also explores emerging opportunities for power electronics engineers in fusion energy, where advanced converters and control systems are critical for handling extreme power levels and ensuring stable operation. Overall, the presentation underscores the convergence of simulation, hardware validation, and next-generation energy applications in shaping the future of power electronics.

About the Speaker:

AI That Works for You: Tools, Prompts, Privacy — and How A Warship Taught Itself History

Generative AI is everywhere — but using it effectively, safely, and without surrendering your data is a skill most people are still developing. This quarter's OEB LMAG lunch brings together and local Higher Ed leader and a CIO, two seasoned practitioners for a practical, hands-on session on getting real value from AI tools. Roger Doering, Professor of Engineering at Cal State East Bay, leads the main program on leveraging generative AI effectively and safely — covering tools, approaches, prompting strategies, and critical privacy and security considerations. He's joined by Mark Rowell, CIO of the USS Hornet Museum, who adds a fascinating real-world dimension: what happens when you build your own private LLM on a historic warship's institutional knowledge. Live demos included. Bring your questions — and your appetite.

Generative AI tools have moved from novelty to necessity — but the gap between casual use and genuinely effective use is wide. For users with concerns about accuracy, privacy, security, and institutional knowledge, the public-cloud nature of most AI tools raises real questions.
This session addresses both sides of that challenge. Roger Doering brings academic and professional rigor to the question of how to get the most from generative AI — what works, what doesn't, and how to stay safe while doing it. Mark Rowell then demonstrates what the far end of the privacy spectrum looks like in practice: a fully private LLM, built on Google's NotebookLM, trained on 165 sources of institutional knowledge about one of America's most historic naval vessels.
Together, they cover the landscape from everyday AI productivity to purpose-built institutional intelligence — with plenty of time for hands-on exploration, demos, and the kind of frank conversation that only happens over a good lunch.

WHAT YOU'LL COVER

•      Generative AI tools landscape — what's worth your time in 2026 and why

•      Prompting that actually works — practical approaches and live examples

•      AI privacy and security — what you're sharing, with whom, and how to protect yourself

•      Hands-on demos — try it yourself, not just watch it, so bring a laptop

•      The private LLM case study — how the USS Hornet built a closed, curated AI from 165 institutional sources

•      Real-world use cases from the Hornet's deployment — docents, educators, researchers, and visitors

•      Open discussion — bring your own AI questions, frustrations, and experiments