Dr. Afshin Rezaei Zare

Biography

Afshin Rezaei-Zare received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran. He pursued research in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada, where he served as a Visiting Scientist from 2005 to 2007 and a Postdoctoral Fellow from 2007 to 2009. He joined the Power Renewable Energy Systems group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at York University in 2017 as an Associate Professor. Prior to joining York University, he worked at Hydro Networks Inc. in Toronto, Canada from 2010 to 2017, focusing on Special Studies, Transmission System Planning, and Transmission Reliability Performance analytics. His broad work scope at Hydro included various types of power system studies, root-cause failure analysis, project planning and budget distribution, risk evaluation, asset management, and reliability analytics. Prof. Rezaei-Zare has made significant contributions in modeling and analyzing Geomagnetic Disturbance (GMD) effects on transformers, developing novel computer tools for GMD impact analysis on the power grid. He is the main contributor to a real-time GMD simulator currently used as a reference by operators at the Ontario Grid Control Center (OGCC), for which he received the Hydro President's Award for Innovation. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario, Canada, a Senior Member of IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery and Chair of the IEEE Task Force on Power Equipment Vulnerability to GIC.

Research Interests