Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Joe Chow, Institute Professor of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering, has won the IEEE Herman Halperin Electric Transmission and Distribution Award for “contributions to the modeling and control of large-scale power transmission systems.” IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.

Chow received his B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Minnesota in 1974, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1975 and 1977. He worked in the power systems business at General Electric Company for nine years before joining Rensselaer in 1987. At Rensselaer, he engages in research, teaching, and student mentoring. 

In his 37 years of teaching at Rensselaer, he has written and edited seven textbooks and monographs, including two textbooks on power system dynamics and control. He co-developed the Power System Toolbox, the first MATLAB-based power system power flow and dynamic simulation program, which has been downloaded thousands of times. His research interests include power system coherency and model reduction, flexible AC transmission system damping control design and simulator, synchrophasor measurement and data application, and control of renewable resources and their participation in electricity markets. 

He is a life fellow of IEEE, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and a Foreign Fellow of the Chinese Society of Electrical Engineering. He received the Donald Eckman Award from the American Automatic Control Council, the Control Technology Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society, and the Charles Concordia Power System Engineering Award and the Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award from the IEEE Power and Energy Society. He was recently appointed a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.