Students

The IAS Electrical Safety Workshop offers two avenues for student participation:

• If you are an IEEE Student Member, you will receive a discount on the registration fee. If you are a student and are not yet a member of IEEE, visit the IEEE Student Membership portal to become a student member and benefit from a lot of resources dedicated to IEEE students.
• If you are a graduate student in engineering or safety, you may submit a poster proposal for the Electrical Safety Prevention through Design Engineering Education Initiative. Qualifying applicants will receive a subsidy to attend the ESW as described below.

Call for Applications
The IEEE IAS Electrical Safety Committee is pleased to call for applications for Electrical Safety Prevention through Design Student Engineering Education Initiative, a program geared toward graduate students in electrical engineering and safety engineering fields. The goal of this program is to award talented and promising students who have a passion for Prevention through Design, by subsidizing travel, lodging and registration for participation in the ESW workshop. A limited number of students will be selected for this honor.

Students are selected based on the merit of their application. Selected students will present a poster presentation at the ESW based on the content of their application materials reflecting their research on electric safety.

Application Deadline
Applications must be submitted by October 31 (Extended to November 15).

Background
Since its inception in 1991, the ESW has provided the premier international forum to enable and accelerate change in the electrical safety culture and push the envelope on what is possible in preventing workplace injuries from electrical hazards. Through the Electrical Safety Prevention through Design Student Engineering Initiative, the IAS Electrical Safety Committee enthusiastically engages the next generation of engineers to stimulate innovation in engineering solutions and inherently safer designs essential to eliminating occupational injuries and fatalities. This program is subsidized by the IAS Education Department and the ESW.

Who is Eligible?
Graduate students (M.S. or Ph.D.) in the electrical engineering or safety engineering sciences, or a closely related field. Winning recipients will receive:

• $600 travel allowance for domestic applicants and $1500 travel allowance for international applicants
• Complimentary Hotel Registration; Recipients may have to share a room with another winning student of the same gender
• Complimentary meals that are part of the ESW program
• Complimentary Conference Registration
• Complimentary Tutorials

Submission Details
To be considered, students should follow the following:

• Complete the application form (PDF)
• All submission materials should be submitted in ONE pdf document to the program chair, Dr. Payman Dehghanian by the application deadline.
• The email subject heading should be “Student Engineering Education Initiative_Full Name_University”.

For assistance or more information on the Student Program, please contact the Student Program Chair listed on our Organizing Committee page.

An Abstract Addressing Either

• Electrical Safety Course Option: An abstract (less than 200 words) addressing: How I would design a college course about electrical safety.

– OR –

• Research Option: An abstract (less than 200 words) addressing: How my research makes an important contribution to the field of electrical safety.

Letters of Recommendation
Applicants are required to provide at least two letters of recommendation from current or past graduate professors.

Winning Recipients
While at the ESW, winning recipients are expected to actively participate in all aspects of the Workshop, including:

• Attending a student luncheon honoring recipients of the Prevention through Design Initiative
• Presenting their Poster
• Attending all technical presentations
• Attending one or more of available tutorials
• Attending the Products & Services Exposition
• Networking with world-class experts and leaders in electrical safety

Invitation for submission of a full manuscript and possible considerations for the presented research at ESW to be published in IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications or IEEE Industry Applications Magazine

Poster Details

Winning applicants will hang their posters on the Tuesday morning of the workshop, and present their posters during the Social event that evening. Presenting the poster involves standing by the poster during the duration of the social, and maintaining dialogue with conference attendees who view the poster and ask questions. Students should follow the template available for their poster.

Download Research Poster Template (PPT)
Download Course Design Poster Template (PPT)

Selected students must submit their posters by email to the Student Program Chair in the following February based on instructions they will receive. The ESW Organizing Committee will print and bring the posters to the ESW.

Suggested Readings for Students

• J.C. Cawley and B.C. Brenner. Occupational electrical injuries in the US, 2003-2009, presented at the IEEE IAS Electrical Safety Workshop, Daytona, FL, Jan. 30 – Feb. 3, 2012.
• D.A. Lombardi, S. Matz, M.J. Brennan, G.S. Smith, and T.K. Courtney, Etiology of work-related electrical injuries: a narrative analysis of workers compensation claims, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, vol. 6, no. 10, pp. 612-623, July 2010.
• C. Spies and & R.G. Trohman. Narrative review: electrocution and life-threatening electrical injuries, Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 145, no. 7, pp. 531-537, 2006.
• A.J. Taylor, G. McGwin Jr., F. Valent, and LW Rue III. Fatal electrocutions in the United States, Injury Prevention, vol. 8, no. 4, pp 306-312, December 2002.

For further information about the IAS Electrical Safety Prevention through Design Student Engineering Education Initiative program, please contact the Student Program Chair listed on the Organizing Committee page.

Past Recipients
Past recipients of the Electrical Safety Prevention through Design Student Education Engineering Initiative are shown below.

2023 

• Danilo Souza, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil: “An Analysis of Accidents Leading to Electrical Shocks in Brazilian Electric Power Distribution Between 2013 and 2021”.
• Riccardo Loggia, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy: “Electrical safety increased in MV-LV
• substation: BIM, SCADA and Digital Twin integration”.
• Jinshun Su, The George Washington University, USA: “Transitions Toward Green Hydrogen and Implications for Electrical Safety”.
• Hossein Naderi, Virginia Tech, USA: “Electrical Safety Incentive Mechanism based on Blockchain-Enabled Tokens”.
• Po En Su, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “Comprehensive Analysis of Data-Driven Arc Flash Hazard Calculation”.
• Mohammad Mansour Lakouraj, University of Nevada Reno, USA: “Fire Hazard Mitigation in Distribution Feeders via Short-time Analysis of Waveform Measurements and Grid-aware Graph Neural Network”.

2022

• Shiva Pooladvand, Purdue University, USA: “How Risk Compensation, Time Pressure, and Cognitive Demand Can Make Electrical Safety Interventions Less Effective?”.
• Meng Zhao, University of Pittsburgh, USA: “Substation Safety Awareness Intelligent Model: Fast Personal Protective Equipment Detection Using GNN Approach”.
• Kaynat Zia, The University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “Zero Bouncing Circuit Design for Li-ion Battery Short Circuit Testing”.
• Mohannad Alhazmi, George Washington University, USA: “On the Resilience of Interconnected Water-Power Networks Under Seismic Extremes”.
• Mohammad Mansour Lakouraj, University of Nevada Reno, USA: “Fault Location in Active Distribution Grids with Graph Neural Network to Enhance Electric Safety”.

2021

• Ikechukwu Onuchukwu, George Mason University, USA: “Analyzing Accidents Among Electrical Contractors: A Data Mining Approach”.
• Xiaotian Tang, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China: “Novel Pre-Diagnosis Strategies for Medium-Low Voltage Arc Flash”.
• Rajesh Pindoria, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India: “Power Consumption at 230V Single-Phase Can be Made as Safe as 120V Systems”.
• Mostafa Nazemi, George Washington University, USA: “Powering through Wildfires: An Integrated Solution for Enhanced Safety and Resilience in Power Grids”.
• Erfan Shirdare, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy: “TN-Island System Shipside and TT-System Shore side for Cold Ironing”.
• Michele Gazzea, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway: “Reducing Wildfire Risks with AI-Based Integrated Satellite & Drone Vegetation Inspection”.
• Yanchang Liang, North China Electric Power University, China: “Enhancing Electrical Safety through EV Fleet Scheduling for Resilient Response to Natural Disasters”.
• Qiqi Hao, University of Pittsburgh, USA: “Object Detection and Distance Estimation for Physical Protection against Substation Attacks”.

2020

• David Gross, University of Alaska Anchorage, USA: “Enhancing Electrical Safety through Innovative Fault Detection and Advanced Control of Photovoltaic Arrays”.
• Shiyuan Wang, George Washington University, USA: “On the Use of Artificial Intelligence for Electrical Safety”.
• Moazzam Nazir, Clemson University, USA: “Electrical Safety Considerations of Neural Blocker Placements for Mitigating Geomagnetically Induced Currents”.
• Yunho Zhou, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “Introducing Arc Flash Hazards and Electrical Safety in Power System Protection Courses”.
• Kaynat Zia, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “DC Arc Flash Estimation”.
• Meng Zhao, University of Pittsburgh, USA: “A Real-Time Fault Localization in Power Distribution Grid for Detection of Electrical Fires through Deep Neural Networks Learning”.

2019

• Long Zhao, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “Prediction of Plasma Trajectory during Arc Flash Incident”.
• Bo Wang, George Washington University, USA: “Electrical Safety Considerations in Large-Scale Electric Vehicle Charging Stations”.
• Raghavender Goud Deshagoni, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand: “Factors Affecting the Effectiveness of A Wind Turbine Generator Lightning Protection System”.
• Kangping Li, North China Electric Power University, China: “Identification and Estimation of Distributed PV Systems for Maintaining Electric Grid Safety”.
• Esperanza Torres, University of Aberdeen, Scotland: “Safety Integrity Level Verification Model for IED Protection Schemes”.

2018

• Kailun Shi, North China Electric Power University, China: “Multi-Mode Voltage Regulation in DC Distribution Networks with Electric Safety Considerations”.
• Liwen Dong, North China Electric Power University, China: “On the Control of Power Electronic Converters for Electricity Grid Operation Safety and Stability”.
• Mohammad Heidari, Wichita State University, USA: “Enhancing Electric Safety by Designing Preventive and Corrective Policies in Cyber-Enabled Power Systems”.
• Iragaba F. Intwari, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “Potential Impact of AC Frequencies on the Operation of Fuses”.
• David Alejandro Trejo Pizzo, Universidad de Palermo, Argentina: “Safety Considerations in Smart Grid Low-Voltage Equipment Design”.

2017

• Maxime Berger, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada: “Modeling, Simulation and Testing of Surge Transients in Railway Vehicle DC Power Systems”.
• Pooria Dehghanian, Texas State University, USA: “Enhancing Electric Safety by Improving Power Grid Resilience in Face of Extreme Emergencies”.
• Tamara Becejac, Texas A&M University, USA: “Synchrophasor Technology: Powerful Tool That Increases Grid Reliability and Advances Electrical Safety”.
• Iragaba F. Intwari, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “3D Modeling of AC Electric Arc on 400 Hz and 60Hz”.
• Farshid Salehi, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “Arc Flash Study in Large Scale Industrial Plant with Internal Generation and Complex Interconnected Network”.

2016

• Maxime Berger, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada: “Short-Circuit Protection Analysis in Railway Vehicles, DC Power Systems using a Transient Analysis Tool”.
• Payman Dehghanian, Texas A&M University, USA: “Weather-Driven Predictive Risk Assessment of Power System Operation for Electric Safety”.
• Ahad Esmaeilian, Texas A&M University, USA: “Impact of Major Power Grid Blackouts Prevention on Electrical Safety”.
• Shiuan-Hau Rau, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “DC Arc Flash Simulation”.

2015

• Maria Arechavaleta, Auburn University, USA: “Workplace Safety under Developing Countries”.
• Wei Cui, China: “A Novel Approach for Arc-Flash Detection”.
• Payman Dehghanian, Texas A&M University, USA: “Assessing the Impact of Power System Topology Control on Circuit Breaker Reliability and Electric Safety”.
• Alvaero Valero, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain: “Improved Cable Connection to Mitigate Transient Enclosure Voltages in 220 kV Gas-Insulated Substations”.
• Emanuele Zennaro, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy: “Microshock Risk Estimation during a Surgical Procedure Based on Circuit Model and its Application to Some Case Studies”.

2014

• Payman Dehghanian, Texas A&M University, USA: “Circuit Breakers and the Impact of Their Maintenance on Electric Safety”.
• Brandon Eidson, Auburn University, USA: “Improved Arc-Flash Risk Assessment Due to Equivalent Power System Impedance Estimation Using Voltage and Current Measurements”.
• Gabor Gocsei, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary: “Electric and Magnetic Fields during Live-Line Maintenance”.
• Sunday Owolabi, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China: “Protection Coordination Studies for the 10-MW Wind Farm in Nigeria Using Time-Current Hybrid with Dynamic Analysis of the Sequence of Operation”.
• Luigi Parise, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy: “Fire Ignition Hazard in Cords and Extension Cords”.
• Shiuan-Hau Rau, University of Texas at Arlington, USA: “Electrical Safety Course for Arc Flash”.
• Nicholas Scarbello, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA: “Field Expedient System Safety Engineering in a Combat Zone”.