On December 18, ECSE and RPI community gathered for a luncheon, and online WebEx, to celebrate Prof. Joe Chow's transition to Senior Research Scientist, starting in 2024, after a distinguished 37-year career at RPI. John Wen, Kurt Anderson, Paul Chow, Tetiana Bogodorova, Denis Osipov shared the impact that Joe had on the department, the school, the Institute, and their careers. Joining remotely, Murat Arcak, Aranya Chakrabortty, Kowk Cheung, Pengwei Du, Agung Julius, and Aparna Gupta shared their appreciation. John Wen read remarks by Dean Shekhar Garde, Koushik Kar, and Meng Wang.
Prof. Chow received his B.S. EE and B. Math degrees from University of Minnesota in 1974, M.S. and Ph.D., both in Electrical Engineering, from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1975 and 1977, respectively. He was with General Electric from 1977 to 1987. He joined RPI as an Associate Professor in 1987, was tenured in 1990 and promoted to Full Professor in 1992. Joe Chow served as the Acting Chair of ECSE 1999-2000, Interim Associate Dean of Engineering for Research 2003-2005, Associate Dean of Engineering for Research and Graduate Program 2005-2011, and Administrative Dean of Engineering 2013-2014. He was named Institute Professor of Engineering in 2017.
Joe Chow is a renowned researcher in power systems. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including election to the National Academy of Engineering, IEEE Fellow, IEEE Power and Energy Society Charles Concordia Power System Engineering Award, IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Power Engineering Education Award, IEEE Control Systems Society Control Systems Technology Award, American Automatic Control Council Donald P. Eckman Award, R&D 100 Award, and numerous best paper awards. He has written 5 books, 3 monographs, 4 edited volumes, 25 book chapters, 156 journal papers, and 209 conference papers. According to Google Scholar, he has over 18,000 citations and an h-index of 66. His research has been funded by NSF, DOE, EPRI, NYSERDA, NYISO, and many other agencies, national labs, and companies. He was the campus director of the NSF Engineering Research Center Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Network (CURENT) from 2011-2020. He has three current grants from DOE, NSF, and Grid Protection Alliance that will continue into 2024-2026. Joe is a dedicated educator and an excellent teacher. He graduated 28 PhD students and developed or taught numerous courses in the areas of power systems and control systems. He is a generous mentor of younger faculty and a tireless champion of nominating colleagues for RPI or external awards. He is truly an exemplary senior faculty. Prof. Chow plans to continue active research and will transition to his new role as a senior research scientist in the department. ECSE will continue to draw on his experience and wisdom even after his retirement from the tenured Full Professor position.