The 43rd North American Power Symposium (NAPS) conference will take place at Northeastern University at Boston, MA in August 2011. It is the objective of this proposal to request support for the travel expenses for students travelling to the conference from the US. Matching funds will be sought from power system utilities, manufacturers and the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES).
The 43rd North American Power Symposium was held in Boston, Massachusetts, at the Curry Student Center of Northeastern University in Boston from August 4 to 6th 2011. Highlights of the program included free housing (single rooms with shared facilities), a Thursday evening reception, a job fair, meals and refreshments for the two-day technical conference, and a student paper contest. The total number of conference registrations were 163, out of which 101 were students and 62 non-students. In addition to the funds provided by NSF for this project, the symposium was supported by the registration fees, IEEE PES Student Program Fund, industry donations and NU College of Engineering. There were 144 papers accepted and presented at the symposium. Symposium banquet featured a prominent technical leader, Dr. Brian Stott as the speaker (please see the attached photo of the speaker). Registration and various tasks associated with the symposium organization were handled by volunteer students of Northeastern Power Engineering program (please the attached photo of registration desk). Paper presentations were carried out in three parallel sessions in 10 technical tracks (please see the photo taken at one of the sessions). Details of the symposium activities were as follows: Free housing (for two nights, single rooms with shared facilities) was provided for 45 students. Travel support was provided for 41 students. Friday morning plenary session that featured the following speakers: "Nuclear Energy, Worth the Risk?" Plenary Talk 1: The State of Nuclear Energy Worldwide Dr. Ian H. Hutchinson, Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plenary Talk 2: What Happened at Fukushima and What Does it Mean? Dr. Michael W. Golay, Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Friday Night Symposium Banquet at Curry Student Center Ballroom Invited Talk: Comments on Power Systems Analysis/Software Evolution Dinner Speaker: Dr. Brian Stott A student paper contest was organized and three winners were identified at the end of the symposium: First Place: Yu Christine Chen, University of Illinois-UC, for the paper entitled, "Impact of Power Generation Uncertainty on Power System Static Performance". Second Place: Sanja Cvijic, Carnegie Mellon University, for the paper entitled, "On Limits to the Graph-Theoretic Approaches in the Electric Power Systems". Third Place: Michael Kleinberg, Drexel University, for the paper entitled, "A Study of Distributed Capacitor Control for Electric Power Distribution Systems". NAPS is unique in its focus on students preparing and presenting technical papers. This conference provides a unique opportunity for NSF to interact with and promote interaction among students, academia and power industry to promote and discuss NSF’s vision of technical challenges in power and energy, and complex systems, sensing, communication and control as well as its economic, educational and sociological impact. NAPS is also venue to an exciting student paper competition for identifying and fostering high quality research performed by students. NAPS conferences have a history of giving students their first opportunity at research presentations. Further, NAPS encourages discussion of systematic integration of research and teaching. Based on recent history of NAPS conferences the student program has been able to attract minorities and women.
