Dr. Krishna Shenai of Computation Institute, University of Chicago

Power electronic switching devices made on wide energy bandgap (WBG) semiconductors such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) have the potential for significantly superior electrical and thermal performances compared to similarly rated silicon power devices. Further, WBG power devices open up a new plethora of high-voltage and high-temperature power electronics switching applications than feasible with silicon power devices.  This talk will provide an update on the history, current status and emerging trends in WBG power devices. The discussion will also focus on opportunities and challenges in the application engineering of WBG power devices in a number of strategic power converters.

Biography:

Krishna Shenai earned a B. Tech. degree in electronics from Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, India in 1979; a MS degree in electrical engineering from The University of Maryland-College Park, MD, USA in 1981; and a PhD degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, CA, USA in 1986.

Dr. Shenai held senior technical staff positions at COMSAT Labs, Clarksburg, MD (1981-1983); GE Research Center, Schenectady, NY (1986-1990); and, Intel Corporation, Aloha, OR (1990-1993). In 1993, he joined The University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI as an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Subsequently, he held tenured full professorships at The University of Illinois – Chicago, IL (1995-2004); Utah State University, Logan, UT (2006-2007); and, The University of Toledo, OH (2007-2012). He was the Principal Electrical Engineer within the Energy Systems Division at Argonne National Labs, Argonne, IL during 2012-2014. Since January 2016, he has been a Distinguished Professor and Director (R&D) at Nitte Mahalinga Adyanthaya Memorial Institute (NMAMIT) in Nitte, Karnataka, India and also an advisor to the Nitte Education Trust (NET) in Mangaluru, Karnataka, India.

Dr. Shenai’s pioneering research in power semiconductor devices and power electronic converters for nearly 40 years has shaped the world-wide industry and produced several key products that have been consistently netting multi-billion dollar annual sales revenues for over 25 years. He has made seminal contributions to low-voltage power MOSFETs, RF power transistors, synchronous rectifiers, high-density power supplies, wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor power devices, high-voltage IGBTs, resonant power converters, and DC microgrids. In the period between 1996 and 2004, he founded and directed world’s first industry-university consortium on power converter reliability at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The research conducted by this group not only unraveled the physics of failure of high-end computer server power supplies, but also led to dramatic improvement in the field-reliability of computer power systems. Dr. Shenai has supervised theses dissertations of more than 3 dozen graduate students from around the world.

Dr. Shenai has authored more than 450 archived publications in major international journals and conference records, 3 books, 10 invited book chapters, and holds 13 issued US patents. Among his many professional awards include a Best Paper award at the 1998 IEEE BCTM conference, 1999 William Brown and FINDS awards from the Institute of Space Studies at Princeton University, 1998 University Scholar award from The University of Illinois, and the first USTAR Endowed Professorship in 2006 from the State of Utah. Dr. Shenai served as the Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Electron Device Society (EDS) from 1998 to 2014. He is an Editor of IEEE J. Electron Device Society (JEDS) and was the General Chair of The First IEEE International Conference on Sustainable Green Buildings and Communities (SGBC) held at the IIT-Madras Research Park in Chennai, India from Dec. 18-20, 2016. Dr. Shenai is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Fellow of American Physical Society (APS), a Fellow of Institution of Electrical and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) of India, and a member of the Serbian Academy of Engineers.

Email:

Address:PO Box 5006, , Naperville, Illinois, United States, 60567