Sasha Weintraub serves as executive vice president and chief customer officer for Duke Energy. In addition to focusing on enhancing the customer experience, he is responsible for the development of new products and services, customer pricing, rate design, economic development and wholesale customers. Additionally, he has responsibility for the company’s electrification efforts, including continued development of long-term grid strategies and solutions.

Weintraub has more than 25 years of experience with the company. Prior to his current role as executive vice president, he held the position of senior vice president and chief customer officer. Before these roles, Weintraub served as senior vice president and president of Duke Energy’s natural gas business, where he was responsible for the company’s regulated natural gas operations in the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In addition, he led the gas commercial operations, which includes supply, wholesale marketing, transportation and pipeline services, field customer service, sales and delivery, and business development.

He has served as senior vice president of both customer and market solutions. In these roles, he aligned customer-focused products and services to deliver a personalized end-to-end customer experience to position Duke Energy for long-term growth. His duties included retail programs, enhanced basic services, rate design and analysis, customer regulatory strategy and analytics, and data analytics. Additionally, he had responsibility for economic development, large business customers and wholesale power sales. He also served as vice president of fuels and systems optimization. He joined the company in 1999 as a senior analyst with Progress Energy.

A native of New York City, Weintraub earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master’s degree in engineering from Columbia University and a doctorate degree in engineering from North Carolina State University. He is also a lecturer at the Kenan- Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Weintraub currently serves on the board of trustees for UNC Charlotte and the boards of directors for TerraGo and the Charlotte Hearing and Speech Center. Weintraub has attended several Advanced Management courses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. He also completed an executive nuclear technology course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Weintraub and his wife, Nichelle, have three daughters. They both served on the board of directors for the Cleft Palate Foundation.

William “Bill” Dean is the CEO of M.C. Dean, Inc., a position he has held since 1997. Under his leadership, the company has grown from a $44 million national firm into a $3 billion multinational enterprise with more than 9,000 employees, delivering innovations in critical infrastructure, electrical power, automation, electronic security, IT, communications, and cloud technologies.

A proud graduate of NC State’s College of Engineering, Bill has maintained a deep and enduring relationship with his alma mater. He has been recognized as a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus and inducted into the Electrical & Computer Engineering Hall of Fame for his professional achievements and service to the engineering community. His continued involvement reflects both his personal and professional commitment to fostering the next generation of engineers.

As a third-generation engineer and business leader, Bill brings a legacy of innovation, growth, and strategic vision. He frequently advises Fortune 10 global enterprises and top federal agencies on critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, and modular design. Through this latest partnership with NC State’s College of Engineering, Bill and M.C. Dean are deepening a long-standing relationship—investing in the future of education, research, and technology to strengthen the pipeline of engineering talent and advance innovation.

Jim Smith serves as the president of PowerSecure, the nation’s leading distributed energy innovation company. As an experienced executive in the field of distributed energy resource (DER) solutions, Smith oversees the company’s rapidly expanding microgrid business and its fleet of over 2 gigawatts of installed systems, which boasts a leading 98%+ reliability rating in the U.S. 

Prior to his previous role, Smith served as the chief operating officer and served as president of energy efficiency services at PowerSecure from 2013 to 2018. In that position, he was responsible for delivering top-tier solutions in lighting, controls, water conservation, building envelope, mechanical/electrical upgrades and renewable energy to reduce energy costs, improve operations and provide the best life cycle cost.

Smith was executive vice president and group president of Lime Energy, a national clean energy solutions provider, from 2004 to 2012. From 1998 to 2004, he served as director, engineering and operations for Ameresco Inc., an independent energy services provider. Prior to that, Smith worked for Duke Solutions, a subsidiary of Duke Energy and Burlington Industries. 

Smith began his career with Burlington Industries, where he worked for eight years in engineering, service and operations with overall responsibility for multiple large industrial and manufacturing facilities in the Southeast before joining Duke Solutions.

Smith holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University as well as numerous licenses and certifications in construction, engineering, project management and safety.

Tom Gray joined NVIDIA in 2011 and leads the Circuits Research group. Prior to NVIDIA, he worked on various transceiver design projects, high speed memory links, and high speed serial links for applications such as Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Infiniband, OIF, and PCI Express as a system architect at Nethra Imaging, ARM, Cadence, and IBM. He received the B.S. degree from Mississippi College in 1988, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical/computer engineering from North Carolina State University in 1990 and 1993, respectively.

Dr. Liuxi (Calvin) Zhang is an industry recognized leader in grid modernization, reliability, resilience, renewable integration and transportation electrification area with extensive experience in research, innovation, strategy, software development, product management and deployment. He is currently Global Technology Director in Eaton overseeing its global energy system R&D team in US, Asia and Europe.

Prior to Eaton, Calvin was Sr. Manager of Distribution Engineering, and Sr. Manager of Smart Grid and Innovation at ComEd. He led efforts to identify and evaluate emerging technologies, develop smart grid strategy and roadmap, lead and manage demonstration projects related to Microgrid, Solar, Energy Storages, Smart Inverter standards, Electric Vehicles, DERMS, ADMS, PMU applications, and Resilience Metrics. He developed and managed 10+ innovation projects, including Bronzeville Community Microgrid, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (with $40M+ portfolio) collaborating with National Labs, Universities, and other solutions providers. His leadership and innovative projects owned several industrial awards, such as EPRI Tech Transfer Award, Association of Edison Illuminating Companies (AEIC) Achievement Award, and Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) Product Innovation Award.

Before joining ComEd, he was lead of distribution systems analytic team in Nexant, where he leads the research, software development and product management of Smart Grid analytic platforms. His expertise includes modeling and analytics of power transmission and distribution systems with renewable energy, EMS/DMS/DERMS applications such as state estimation, load flow and optimization with renewable energy, as well as PMU applications.

Dr. Zhang is IEEE Senior Member. He is core member of several working groups in IEEE PES Technical Committees. He has been frequently invited as panelist/session chair in major IEEE conferences. Dr. Zhang obtained his Ph.D. from Northeastern University, Boston, MA and his M.S. and B.S. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. He is the recipient of 2013 IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award in Boston Chapter and 2012 IEEE Student Achievement Award in Boston Chapter. He currently serves as Co-Chair of 2023 IEEE Grid Edge Technology Conference & Exposition.

Aleksi Paaso, PhD, PE, Executive Advisor, Vice President of Grid Transformation, provides leadership to Quanta Technology in developing and executing strategies for grid transformation and modernization. He has worked in key leadership roles at electric utilities, where he has led large teams in key utility functions, including T&D planning, asset management, investment strategy, design, and smart grid. He has also led key initiatives to establish and execute plans that modernize grid infrastructure, introduce new grid technologies (e.g., microgrids, energy storage, and advanced sensors), and transform important utility processes. He has also held key positions in the utility Incident Command Structure (ICS), including Deputy Incident Commander and Public Information Officer.

In the industry, he has led efforts at IEEE PES in leading local organization committees for several major PES conferences. Currently, he leads the IEEE PES Industry Technical Support Leadership Committee (ITS-LC) to foster partnerships with governmental and regulatory groups and corporate members and drive fast-tracked efforts to address key industry needs. He is a Professional Engineer in Illinois.

Blaise Michna is currently the North Carolina Utilities Commission – Public Staff’s Manager of Research, Economics, and Modeling. He joined the Public Staff in 2022 after working for DTE Electric. Blaise currently works on matters pertaining to both electric and gas utilities including general and multi-year rate cases, integrated resource planning, the recent large load customer technical conference, CPCN proceedings, and other regulatory dockets. He is an Electrical Engineer through and through, holding Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Wayne State University and Pennsylvania State University respectively.

David McLaurin joined Analog Devices in 2000, where he is an ADI Fellow in the Data Center and Energy business unit, focused on architecting ADI’s solutions for energy conversion, management and storage. Prior to joining the Energy business unit, David developed wireless transceivers in ADI’s Communications business unit and led the radio architecture for a family of ADI’s software-defined radio products targeting a wide range of applications, from cellular base-stations to space communications. He received B.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1998, and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2000.

Robert Cox, Ph.D. is a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) as well as the Duke Energy Distinguished Scholar in Power Engineering Systems. His work is focused on research and development in grid resiliency, energy utilization, and energy systems engineering. He has held roles including Associate Director of EPIC and Assistant Director for the Energy Management Research Vertical. Dr. Cox and his team collaborate with industry partners and contribute to national research initiatives aimed at improving energy efficiency and building performance through data-driven methods. He holds degrees (S.B., M.Eng., Ph.D.) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Mihai Diaconeasa obtained his B.S. degree from University College Utrecht, the international undergraduate honors college of Utrecht University, the Netherlands, his M.S. in Nuclear Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After his graduation, Dr. Diaconeasa held the postdoctoral research scholar position at the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences from the School of Engineering at UCLA.

Over the past years, Dr. Diaconeasa has developed the methodologies needed to design and implement a suite of computer codes in the probabilistic risk, reliability, and resilience assessment (PRA) fields for nuclear, aerospace, and maritime industries. He has served as the Associate General Chair for the International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (PSAM-14) hosted by UCLA in 2018, as the Track Chair/Co-Chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Design, Reliability, Safety, and Risk at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) since 2020, and Publications Chair of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis Conference in 2023 (PSA 2023) and Advanced Reactor Safety (ARS 2024) Embedded Topical in the 2024 ANS Annual Meeting. He will serve as the Technical Program Chair of the Advanced Reactor Safety Embedded Topical (ARS 2026) in the 2026 ANS Annual Meeting.

Additionally, Dr. Diaconeasa is the Past Chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis Division (SERAD) Executive Committee, the Chair of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Nuclear Installations Safety Division (NISD) Executive Committee and the Vice Chair of the ANS Advanced Reactor Working Group (ARWG). Also, he serves as the Chair of the ANS Standards Committee ANS-30.2 and member of ANS-30.1 Working Groups under the Research and Advanced Reactors Consensus Committee and is the Vice Chair of the “Probabilistic Design Methods” Subcommittee, “Plant Systems Design” ASME Standards Committee.

Dr. Diaconeasa leads the design and development of ADS-IDAC, a dynamic probabilistic risk assessment methodology and software platform for nuclear power plants and is the founder of the OpenPRA Initiative dedicated to designing and developing a wide range of traditional probabilistic risk assessment methods and open source software. For significant contributions to the simulation-based methods for probabilistic risk assessment of current and next generation of nuclear power plants, Dr. Diaconeasa received the ANS David Okrent Award for Nuclear Safety.

During his tenure at the UCLA’s B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences, he has led the development of the Hybrid Causal Logic Analyzer system risk and reliability software used to enhance the design process and assess the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts usage in space systems for extended deep space missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Phoenix human reliability analysis (HRA) methodology and software adopted by the Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (JNRA).

Dr. Zhangxin Zhou is a Staff Engineer at Dominion Energy, specializing in transmission planning studies and the application of advanced technologies. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, where his research focused on power system stability and control, inverter-based resource modeling, and simulation.

Francisco Zelaya‑Arrazabal is a Senior Engineer at Dominion Energy Virginia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, a Master of Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee. His experience spans power system dynamics and control, electromechanical oscillations, system operations, deep learning applications in power systems, and the integration of large emerging loads with the electric grid.

Dr. Pengxiang Huang is a scientist at Hitachi Energy based in Raleigh, North Carolina. His research interests are in the general area of HVdc and FACTS, with a specific emphasis on the stability, control & protection and dynamic study. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, awarded in 2023.

Dr Fahd Hashiesh, is a Global Energy Transition Executive and C-suite leader with over 30 years of comprehensive experience in the energy sector. He is a Chartered Engineer, a senior member of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). He has held key global leadership roles at major corporations, with full P&L responsibilities, including ABB, and Hitachi Energy. At these firms, he engineered corporate vision and spearheaded multi-billion-dollar portfolios across Power Quality, Renewables, and green hydrogen business segments, and established a Power Consultancy business unit to support global clients with power system modelling, simulations, and analysis. He builds a full digital-twin lab to mimic a large load integration operation and control. 

Dr Hashiesh is a recognized expert in grid modernization and renewable & large dynamic load integration projects, BESS, and Digital Substations. He has authored and co-authored journals, technical papers, books, and delivered prestigious keynote speeches across the globe. Dr. Hashiesh has patents in Power Quality and Power Systems Control and publications on advanced power systems analysis.

Dr. Horacio Silva-Saravia is a Founding Power Systems Engineer at GridVAR and a power systems engineering leader with over a decade of experience spanning grid operations, advanced analytics, and power system software products. His work provides power system modeling expertise and technical validation to ensure solutions align with real-world utility evaluation, deployment, and operational practices.

Prior to founding GridVAR, Dr. Silva-Saravia served as Director of Power Systems Engineering at Electric Power Group, leading multidisciplinary teams on complex programs for major ISOs and utilities including PJM, AEP, and Dominion Energy. His work focused on deploying synchrophasor-based technologies and analytics for oscillation monitoring, grid reliability, and operational decision-making—capabilities that are increasingly critical as the grid evolves to support large, flexible loads such as data centers and energy-intensive computing.

He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile. He has contributed to peer-reviewed publications and book chapters in power system dynamics, wide-area monitoring, and grid reliability, and regularly collaborates with utilities, technology partners, and academic institutions to bridge research and real-world deployment.

Hao Zhu is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at The University of Texas at Austin. She received the B.S. degree from Tsinghua University in 2006, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota in 2009 and 2012, all in electrical engineering. Dr. Zhu’s research focus is on developing algorithmic solutions for machine learning and optimization problems in future energy systems. Her current research interests include grid integration of hyperscale AI datacenters, and machine learning for power system operations and resilience enhancements. She is the Founding Chair for the IEEE PES Task Force on Datacenter and AI Load Integration (DALI).

Dr. Dingrui Li is an Assistant Professor in the Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Clemson University. Before joining Clemson University, he was a Power Electronics Research Scientist at ABB US Research Center. Dr. Li received his B.S. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2017, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, in 2023.

Dr. Li’s research interests include power electronics for grid applications (e.g., grid-forming inverters) and electrified transportation systems; renewable energy and storage system integration; medium-voltage power electronics; multi-level power converters; power electronics control and firmware development; and AC/DC microgrids.