News and Updates

2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016

• February 20th , Tianqi passed defense proposal

  Tianqi passed his dissertation defense proposal. Congratulations!
• February 3rd , Chengda defended his dissertation

  Chengda Ji, an ME Ph.D. student in our lab, defended his dissertation entitled “Analysis, Control, and Optimization of Networked Dynamical Systems under Uncertainty” on Friday, February 3rd. Congratulations!
• January 31st , Tianqi received MINDS Fellowship

  Tianqi received MINDS Fellowship for the 2023 Spring term. Congratulations!
• January 20th , 1 paper accepted to AISTATS

  Our paper on convergence of gradient descent on overparametrized linear network [1] has been accepted to International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics! [1] Z. Xu, H. Min, S. Tarmoun, E. Mallada, and R. Vidal, “Linear Convergence of Gradient Descent For Overparametrized Finite Width Two-Layer Linear Networks with General Initialization,” in International Conference on Artificial ... Read more
• January 20th , 2 papers accepted to ACC

  Our paper on spectral clustering for weakly-connected network systems [1] and our paper on frequency shaping control [2] have been accepted to American Control Conference 2023! [1] H. Min and E. Mallada, “Spectral clustering and model reduction for weakly-connected coherent network systems,” in American Control Conference (ACC), 2023, pp. 1-7. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] We ... Read more
• January 20th , 1 paper accepted to TAC

  Our paper on safe reinforcement learning with almost sure constraints [1] has been accepted to Transactions on Automatic Control Special Issue on Learning for Control! [1] A. Castellano, H. Min, J. Bazerque, and E. Mallada, “Learning to Act Safely with Limited Exposure and Almost Sure Certainty,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, pp. 1-16, 2023. [Bibtex] ... Read more

• November 15th , 1 paper accepted to LCSS

  Our paper on frequency shaping control for grid-forming IBRs [1] has been accepted to Control Systems Letters! [1] B. K. Poolla, Y. Lin, A. Bernstein, E. Mallada, and D. Groß, “Frequency shaping control for weakly-coupled grid-forming IBRs,” IEEE Control Systems Letters (L-CSS), pp. 937-942, 2022. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] We introduce a novel framework to ... Read more
• October 21st , Jay defended his dissertation

  Jay Guthrie, an ECE Ph.D. student in our lab, defended his dissertation entitled “Novel Representations of Semialgebraic Sets Arising in Planning and Control” on Friday, October 21st. Congratulations!
• September 30th , Yue passed his GBO

  Yue passed his GBO exam. Congratulations!
• September 2nd , Agustin passes his DQE

  Agustin Castellano, a student in our group, just passed his departmental qualifying exam. Congrats Agustin!
• July 1st , DJ joins NetDLab

  Dhananjay Anand (a.k.a. DJ) joins our lab as Research Scientist! Welcome DJ!
• April 25th , DREAM/CPAR Seminar @ Berkeley
• April 11th , ECE Seminar @ UMich
• March 30th , ARO Workshop on Synchronization
• March 1st , 1 paper accepted to L4DC
• February 3rd , 1 paper accepted to ACC
• February 3rd , 1 paper accepted to PSCC

• December 15th , Rajni to do an internship at EPRI

  Congrats Rajni for getting an internship at EPRI for the spring semester!
• December 14th , 1 paper accepted to SICON
• November 21st , Tianqi to do an internship at Amazon

  Congrats Tianqi for getting an internship at Amazon for next summer as Applied Scientist Intern
• October 8th , Rajni passes his GBO

  Rajni Kant Bansal, ME Ph.D. student from our lab, passed his Graduate Board Oral Examination! Congratulations!
• September 10th , Pengcheng to join Peking University

  Pengcheng You, a Postdoctoral researcher from our lab, will join Peking University as an Assistant Professor at College of Engineering in Spring 2022! Congratulations!
• September 10th , Hancheng passes his GBO

  Hancheng Min, ECE Ph.D. student from our lab, passed his Graduate Board Oral Examination! Congratulations!
• August 12th , Agustin joins NetDLab

  Agustin Castellano joins our lab as a new Ph.D. student at ECE! Welcome!
• August 12th , Tianqi passes his GBO

  Tianqi Zheng, ECE Ph.D. student from our lab, passed his Graduate Board Oral Examination! Congratulations!
• August 2nd , 1 paper accepted to CDC 21
• July 1st , Yan and Charalampos defended their dissertations

  Yan has defended her dissertation entitled “Leveraging Inverter-Interfaced Energy Storage for Frequency Control in Low-Inertia Power Systems” on Tuesday, June 29th! Charalampos has defended his dissertation entitled “Designing resilient interdependent infrastructures across spatial and temporal scales” on Wednesday, June 30th! Congratulations, Yan and Charalampos!
• May 12th , 2 papers accepted to ICML’21
• May 5th , Excellence in Teaching Award

  I received the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award. https://engineering.jhu.edu/ece/2021/05/07/ece-2021-convocation-award-recipients-announced/
• April 21st , Affiliated researcher at ROSEI

  I have joined the newly-created Johns Hopkins University Ralph S. O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI) as an affiliated researcher!
• April 13th , Epstein Institute Seminar @ USC
• April 9th , ECSE Seminar @ RPI
• April 6th , Haralampos to join NYU as postdoc in CUSP

  Haralampos received an offer from NYU and will be joining there as a postdoc in the Center for Urban Science and Progress. Congrats Haralampos!
• March 25th , ECE Seminar @ NYU
• March 15th , 1 paper accepted to TPS
• March 12th , Seminar @ Argentine Conference of Electronics
• March 10th , Yan to join UW ECE as a postdoc

  Yan will be joining Baosen’s group at UW to do a joint postdoc between UW and ASU. Congratulations!
• March 5th , ML Seminar @ JHU
• February 16th , ECE Research Colloquium @ UW
• January 30th , Seminar @ Los Alamos National Laboratory
• January 28th , Hancheng receives MINDS Spring Fellowship 2021

  Hancheng Min, Ph.D. student from our lab, receives MINDS Spring Fellowship!
• January 27th , ECE Seminar @ University of Iowa
• January 26th , 6 papers accepted to ACC 21
• January 5th , 1 paper accepted to TIT

• December 5th , 1 paper accepted to ENERGIES
• December 5th , 1 paper accepted to TAC
• November 28th , 2 papers accepted to L-CSS
• November 19th , NSF AMPS 2020

  I gave a talk in the NSF Workshop for Algorithms for Modern Power Systems (AMPS): https://sites.google.com/view/nsfamps20/schedule
• August 14th , 1 paper accepted to TAC
• July 21st , Seminar @ Oxford Univerisity
• July 1st , Tianqi Received ACC Student Travel Award

  Tianqi, Ph.D. student in our lab, received ACC2020 Student Travel Award.
• June 17th , JHU Catalyst Award

  I received the 2020 JHU Catalyst Award.
• June 13th , Eli to participate AIM Summer School on COVID-19

  Elijah Pivo, a member in our lab, is selected to participate AIM Summer School “Dynamics and data in the COVID-19 pandemic”
• May 20th , Yan to do an internship at NREL

  Congrats Yan for getting an online internship at the National Renewable Energy Lab!
• April 24th , Yan passed her GBO

  Yan Jiang, a Ph.D. student in ECE from our lab, passed her Graduate Board Oral Examination! Congratulations!
• April 1st , Eli receives NSF Graduate Fellowship

  Elijah Pivo, a member in our lab, receives NSF Graduate Fellowship! Congratulations!
• January 19th , 1 paper accepted to TSUSC
• January 16th , 2 papers accepted to ECC 20
• January 16th , 1 paper accepted to ACC 20

• December 9th , Seminar @ KTH

  I gave a talk on “Embracing Low Inertia in Power System Frequency Control: A Dynamic Droop Approach” at KTH, Sweden. Related publications include [1, 2, 3] [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 67, iss. 7, pp. 3007-3022, ... Read more
• November 20th , Hancheng received MINDS Data Science Fellowship

  Hancheng Min, a Ph.D. student in ECE in our lab, won the MINDS Data Science Fellowship for the 2019-2020 cycle! Congrats!
• November 20th , Discovery Award

  I received the Discovery Award together with Co-PIs Marcelo Fernandez and Dennice Gayme for the project: A Data-Driven Approach to Electricity Market Design https://research.jhu.edu/major-initiatives/discovery-awards/2019-awardees/
• November 19th , Co-PI for the Tripods Institute

  I am the Co-PI for the new TRIPODS Institute at the Johns Hopkins Mathematical Institute of Data Science: https://engineering.jhu.edu/ece/2019/11/19/ece-assistant-professor-enrique-mallada-named-a-co-pi-in-the-tripods-institute/#.XiHpLlNKh44
• September 3rd , 1 paper accepted to TAC

  Our paper on global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems [1] has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control! [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 67, iss. 7, pp. 3007-3022, 2020. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] ... Read more
• September 3rd , Seminar @ University of Colorado Boulder

  I gave a talk on “Embracing Low Inertia in Power System Frequency Control: A Dynamic Droop Approach” at University of Colorado Boulder. Related publications include [1, 2, 3] [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 67, iss. 7, ... Read more
• August 5th , Seminars and Talks in Asia

  During my trip to Asia from Jul 29th to Aug 5th, I gave talks on “Embracing Low Inertia in Power System Frequency Control: A Dynamic Droop Approach” at Hong Kong University, Zhejiang University, Tsinghua University, and Beijing Institute of Technology. Related publications include [1, 2, 3] [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of ... Read more
• July 20th , 3 papers accepted to CDC 19

  Our papers on strategic behavior of load participants in two-stage settlement electricity markets [1], model predictive control via second order cone programming [2], and dynamics concentration of tightly-connected networks [3] have been accepted to IEEE Conference on Decision and Control! [1] P. You, D. F. Gayme, and E. Mallada, “The Role of Strategic Load Participants ... Read more
• July 10th , TPC Member of ACC 19

  I am a TPC Member of the American Control Conference 2019 held in Philadelphia, PA, U.S.
• May 22nd , Seminar @ Universidad ORT Uruguay

  I gave a talk on “Embracing Low Inertia in Power System Frequency Control: A Dynamic Droop Approach” at Universidad ORT Uruguay. Related publications include [1, 2, 3] [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 67, iss. 7, pp. ... Read more
• May 2nd , The Mathematics of Energy Systems Workshop

  I gave a talk on “Embracing Low Inertia in Power System Frequency Control: A Dynamic Droop Approach” at The Mathematics of Energy Systems Workshop in Issac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Related publications include [1, 2, 3] [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” ... Read more
• March 20th , Co-Chair of CISS 19

  I am the Co-Chair of Conference on Information, Sciences and Systems 2019 held in Baltimore, MD, U.S.
• February 19th , Panel Session @ IEEE ISGT 19

  I gave a talk on “Dynamic Droop Control for Low Inertia Power Systems” in the Panel session at IEEE ISGT 2019. Related publications include [1, 2, 3, 4] [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 67, iss. 7, ... Read more
• February 7th , Invited Session @ FEPSET 19

  I gave a talk on “Dynamic Droop Control for Low Inertia Power Systems” in the invited session at Future Electric Power Systems and the Energy Transition 2019. Related publications include [1, 2, 3, 4] [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on ... Read more
• January 28th , 2 papers accepted to ACC 19

  Our papers on voltage collapse stabilization [1] and coordinating distribution system resources in energy and ancillary service transmission system markets [2] have been accepted to 2019 American Control Conference! [1] C. Avraam, J. Rines, A. Sarker, F. Paganini, and E. Mallada, “Voltage Collapse Stabilization in Star DC Networks,” in American Control Conference (ACC), 2019, pp. ... Read more

• November 21st , 1 paper accepted to TAC

  Our paper [1] on a leaky integrator approach for robust decentralized secondary frequency control has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control! [1] E. Weitenberg, Y. Jiang, C. Zhao, E. Mallada, C. De Persis, and F. Dorfler, “Robust Decentralized Secondary Frequency Control in Power Systems: Merits and Trade-Offs,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. ... Read more
• November 19th , Eliza won JHU’s PURA Award

  Eliza Cohn, an undergraduate in ECE and Math in our lab,  won the Johns Hopkins University’s Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award! Congrats Eliza! For more details read the announcement in this link.
• November 9th , Control Seminar @ University of Michigan
• November 5th , Invited Session @ INFORMS Annual Meeting

  I co-organized with John Simpson-Porco an invited session on Real-time Optimization of Power Systems at INFORMS Annual Meeting. This session is motivated by our recent work on the topic [1, 2, 3] [1] Z. Nelson and E. Mallada, “An integral quadratic constraint framework for steady state optimization of linear time invariant systems,” in American Control ... Read more
• November 2nd , 1 abstract accepted to FERC’s TAIC

  An abstract on our work on Coordinating Distribution System Resources for Co-optimized Participation in Energy and Ancillary Service Transmission System Markets [1] was accepted to the FERC Trans-Atlantic INFRADAY Conference. [1] C. Ji, M. H. Hajiesmaili, D. F. Gayme, and E. Mallada, Coordinating Distribution System Resources for Co-optimized Participation in Energy and Ancillary Service Transmission System ... Read more
• July 31st , ECE Seminar @ University of Waterloo

  I gave a talk on “Inverter-based Control for Low Inertia Power Systems” in the ECE Seminar at the University of Waterloo. Related publications include [1, 2, 3]. [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 67, iss. 7, pp. ... Read more
• July 15th , 3 papers accepted to CDC 18

  Our papers on sparse recovery on graph incidence matrices [1], optimal steady-state control [2], and robustness of consensus algorithms under measurement errors [3] have been accepted to IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. See you in Miami! [1] M. Zhao, M. D. Kaba, R. Vidal, D. R. Robinson, and E. Mallada, “Sparse Recovery over Graph ... Read more
• July 13th , 1 paper accepted to MTNS
• May 8th , Jesse and Aurik received Honorable Mention

  Jesse Rines and Aurik Sarker, co-authors of the paper [1], received an honorable mention of the The Muly Family Undergraduate Research Award. Congrats! [1] C. Avraam, J. Rines, A. Sarker, F. Paganini, and E. Mallada, “Voltage Collapse Stabilization in Star DC Networks,” in American Control Conference (ACC), 2019, pp. 1957-1964. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] Voltage ... Read more
• March 5th , NSF CAREER Award

  I received the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF)! This NSF program is “in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education” The title is Control, Optimization, and Market Design for Efficient and Reliable Integration of Renewable Energy Sources in Electric Power Systems You ... Read more
• January 24th , CSL Seminar @ UIUC

  I gave a talk on “Inverter-based Control for Low Inertia Power Systems” in the Coordinated Science Laboratory Seminar at UIUC. Related publications include [1, 2, 3]. [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global analysis of synchronization performance for power systems: bridging the theory-practice gap,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 67, iss. 7, pp. 3007-3022, ... Read more
• January 20th , 1 paper accepted to IJEPES

  Our paper [1] on a distributed plug-and-play generator and load control has been accepted to the International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems. [1] C. Zhao, E. Mallada, S. H. Low, and J. W. Bialek, “Distributed plug-and-play optimal generator and load control for power system frequency regulation,” International Journal of Electric Power and Energy ... Read more
• January 20th , 1 paper accepted to ACC

  Our paper [1] on an IQC framework for real-time steady-state optimization of LTI Systems has been accepted to appear on the 2018 American Control Conference. Congrats Zach! [1] Z. Nelson and E. Mallada, “An integral quadratic constraint framework for steady state optimization of linear time invariant systems,” in American Control Conference (ACC), 2018. [Bibtex] [Abstract] ... Read more

• October 13th , 1 paper accepted to TAC

  Our paper [1] on the role of convexity on the convergence and robustness of saddle-point dynamics has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control! [1] A. Cherukuri, E. Mallada, S. H. Low, and J. Cortes, “The role of convexity on saddle-point dynamics: Lyapunov function and robustness,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 63, iss. ... Read more
• October 4th , 1 invited paper in Allerton

  I presented our work on characterizing the dynamic performance of power networks with heterogeneously rated machines [1] in an invited session in the 55th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing. [1] F. Paganini and E. Mallada, “Global performance metrics for synchronization of heterogeneously rated power systems: The role of machine models and inertia,” ... Read more
• August 17th , AMPS grant award from NSF

  I received a grant award from the Algorithms for Modern Power Systems (AMPS) program of the NSF! The title is “Dynamics-aware Algorithms for Real-time Structured Fault Detection in Power Systems”
• July 12th , 3 papers accepted to CDC 17

  Our papers on evaluating the cost of security constrained OPF [1], evaluating the performance tradeoffs of designing inverter-based control for low inertia power systems [2], and characterizing performance of networked dynamical systems over directed graphs [3] have been accepted to IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. See you in Australia! [1] M. H. Hajiesmaili, D. ... Read more
• June 23rd , EPCN grant award from NSF

  I received a grant award from the Energy, Power, Control, and Networks (EPCN) program of the NSF! The title is “An Optimization Decomposition Framework for Principled Multi-Timescale Market Design and Co-Optimization”
• June 6th , 1 paper accepted to IEEE CSL

  Our paper [1] on the existence and uniqueness of high-voltage solutions of power flow equations in tree networks has been IEEE Control System Letters! [1] K. Dvijotham, E. Mallada, and J. W. Simpson-Porco, “High-Voltage Solution in Radial Power Networks: Existence, Properties, and Equivalent Algorithms,” IEEE Control Systems Letters, vol. 1, iss. 2, pp. 322-327, 2017. ... Read more
• May 1st , 1 paper accepted to IEEE TAC

  Our paper [1] on load side frequency control and congestion management has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control! [1] E. Mallada, C. Zhao, and S. H. Low, “Optimal load-side control for frequency regulation in smart grids,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 62, iss. 12, pp. 6294-6309, 2017. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] Frequency ... Read more
• March 1st , 1 paper accepted to IFAC World Congress

  Our paper [1] on robust inverter-based control for low inertia power systems has been accepted to IFAC World Congress! [1] R. Pates and E. Mallada, “Decentralised Robust Inverter-based Control in Power Systems,” in IFAC World Congress, 2017, pp. 5548-5553. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] This paper develops a novel framework for power system stability analysis, that ... Read more
• February 26th , 1 paper accepted to IEEE TPS

  Our paper [1] on multi-timescale decomposition for joint economic dispatch and frequency regulation was accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems! [1] D. Cai, E. Mallada, and A. Wierman, “Distributed optimization decomposition for joint economic dispatch and frequency regulation,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 32, iss. 6, pp. 4370-4385, 2017. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download ... Read more
• February 15th , ENERGISE grant award from DoE!

  We just received an ENERGISE (Enabling Extreme Real-time Grid Integration of Solar Energy) award from the Department of Energy (DoE). Project Description: The project seeks to overcome the challenges of managing an increasingly variable and uncontrollable power supply due to roof-top solar by adapting advanced real-time control and optimization concepts from high-voltage power systems to low-voltage ... Read more
• February 8th , Grant award from Army Research Office

  I received a grant award from the Army Research Office! The title is “Beyond Consensus: A Distributed Optimization Approach for Complex Coordination in Large-scale Dynamic Networks”

• August 8th , 1 paper accepted to Allerton

  Our paper [1] on understanding the role of local and strong convexity on the convergence and robustness of saddle-point dynamics has been accepted to the Allerton Conference on Communication, Control and Computing! [1] A. Cherukuri, E. Mallada, S. H. Low, and J. Cortes, “The role of strong convexity-concavity in the convergence and robustness of the ... Read more
• July 23rd , 1 paper accepted to CDC

  My paper [1] on decoupling power grid’s dynamic and steady-state performance has been accepted to the Conference on Decision and Control! [1] E. Mallada, “iDroop: A dynamic droop controller to decouple power grid’s steady-state and dynamic performance,” in 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2016, pp. 4957-4964. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] This paper ... Read more
• June 29th , Seed grant from E2SHI

  Our research project with René Vidal on  Leveraging Dynamics, Sparsity and Nonlinearities for Secure and Reliable Power Grid Operation has been selected by E2SHI’s Seed Grant Program for the 2016-2017 academic year.
• May 20th , 1 paper accepted to IEEE TNSE

  Our paper [1] on synchronization of phase-coupled oscillators was accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering [1] A. Gushchin, E. Mallada, and A. Tang, “Phase-coupled oscillators with plastic coupling: Synchronization and stability,” IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, vol. 3, iss. 4, pp. 240-256, 2016. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] In ... Read more
• February 10th , 1 paper accepted to PSCC

  Our paper [1] on unified frequency control and congestion management has been accepted to Power System Computation Conference! [1] C. Zhao, E. Mallada, S. H. Low, and J. W. Bialek, “A Unified Framework for Frequency Control and Congestion Management,” in Power Systems Computation Conference, 2016, pp. 1-7. [Bibtex] [Abstract] [Download PDF] The existing frequency control ... Read more
• January 1st , I joined Hopkins ECE!

  I started my assistant professor appointment @ Johns Hopkins on Jan 1st 2016. More news to come…