Dr. Sahar Azad

Biography

Sahar Azad is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. She earned her PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto in 2013, specializing in power systems. Her doctoral research focused on designing advanced control schemes for DC-segmented AC systems to enhance grid stability and prevent large-scale blackouts. Following her PhD, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Applied Power Electronics (CAPE) at the University of Toronto, where she developed controllers with minimal communication requirements to improve stability in multi-infeed HVDC systems. In 2015, Sahar worked as an experienced researcher at Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven in Belgium, contributing to the Multi-Terminal DC Grid Offshore Wind (MEDOW) project, which was funded by the Marie Curie Initial Training Network of the European Commission. She served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta from October 2015 to December 2017 and joined the University of Waterloo in 2018. Dr. Azad's current research interests include protection and control of power systems integrating High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines, with a specific emphasis on enhancing stability, reliability, and efficiency of modern electrical grids.

Research Interests

Courses