ECE’s Lightbulb Moment: Professor Dall’Anese Brings Sustainable Energy Focus
by A.J. Kleber
The problem of energy lies at the heart of the climate crisis. Utilizing and scaling renewable energy resources to provide affordable, reliable power distribution which can sustainably support the needs of the global community is perhaps the most urgent challenge of our time. This challenge is the powerful incentive which drives Associate Professor Emiliano Dall’Anese’s research.
The newest member of the BU ECE faculty specializes in optimization, control, and learning in complex, cyber-physical and network systems. Much of his work is based in developing theoretical methods and algorithms; tools which can be applied to address some of the roadblocks which hamper the development and deployment of sustainable energy sources and practices. With funding from the US Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and an NSF CAREER award, he has worked to develop tools and theoretical foundations for everything from optimized voltage and frequency control, to pricing schemes to incentivize the electrification of transportation. In addition to the direct focus on clean, affordable, and reliable energy, Dall’anese also works to develop safe, optimized autonomous systems, especially for Electric Vehicles (EVs) and robotics.
Professor Dall’anese joins Boston University from the University of Colorado Boulder; he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Padova, Italy, in 2011. A seasoned academic, his background also includes industry experience, with Senior Engineer and Chief Technology Officer roles at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Maplewell Energy under his belt. In addition to his 2020 NSF CAREER Award, he is the recipient of multiple Best Paper Awards from the IEEE Power and Energy Society (2020, 2021) and most recently, IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems (2023).