Saeed D. Manshadi is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at San Diego State University, where he directs the Smart Grid Lab and serves as SDSU Co-Director of the Southern California Energy Innovation Network. His research centers on the operation and planning of power systems under rapid load growth and transmission constraints. Current topics include the grid integration of large loads such as AI data centers and of electrified transportation and agriculture; large-scale optimization and optimal power flow for bulk-system planning; resilient grid operation under wildfire risk and other extreme events; microgrids and interdependent electricity–natural gas infrastructure; electricity market design, transactive energy, and demand response; and machine-learning-assisted optimization for grid operations.

Vidya Rangaswamy is a Senior Systems Engineer at General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and a volunteer adjunct faculty member at San Diego State University, where he mentors senior engineering students through their capstone projects.

With over four decades of power electronics leadership, Vidya has served in key executive roles—including Vice President, Director, and Senior Manager of Engineering. Recently, he served as VP of Engineering at Ohmium, leading engineering strategy for green hydrogen manufacturing.

During a prior 15-year tenure at General Atomics EMS, he led engineering teams developing mission-critical systems, including 2 MW permanent magnet motor inverter drives, the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) for US NAVAIR, Space Satellite Systems, and Power Architectures for Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

Earlier in his career, Vidya spent 20 years at Eaton Electrical, overseeing the design, test, and manufacturing of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) ranging from 300 W to 3 MW. He also held engineering leadership roles at Magnetek Drives and Systems, developing fuel cell-based inverters, and at Hardy Process Solutions, managing industrial sensor integration for Allen-Bradley systems.

Vidya has published papers in IEEE publications and has written patents in Power Electronics field.

Vidya holds two Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering specializing in Power Electronics—one from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, and another from the University of Minnesota. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Mysore, India.