IEOR Alum to head Power Systems Engineering Research Center

Associate professor of Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University, Dr. Kory Hedman, Ph.D. ’10 (IEOR), will serve as the new Director of Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC) from October 2020. Dr. Hedman replaces Dr. Vijay Vittal who led PSERC for the last 15 years.

PSERC was established in 1996 as an NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Center (IUCRC). Professor Shmuel Oren, the Berkeley site director, was one of its co-founders and the center has grown to a twelve university research consortium with about 40 industry members.

Kory Hedman has been involved with PSERC since Fall 2004 as a master’s student at Iowa State University, and then a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley (supervised by Prof. Oren). After his appointment at Arizona State University, he has served as the ASU Site Director and the Markets Stem Chair for PSERC since January 2018.

Further, since Fall 2017, Kory has been serving as a Program Director at DOE ARPA-E where he launched the grid optimization (GO) competition and designed the recent performance-based energy resource feedback, optimization, and risk management (PERFORM) program. Kory has been involved in overseeing and designing multiple grid programs while working for ARPA-E, cumulatively worth over $100M.

In January 2017, President Barack Obama awarded roughly 100 researchers, including Kory Hedman – nominated by the US DOE – the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), which is listed as the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

The Berkeley IEOR Department congratulates Kory Hedman on being appointed Director of PSERC and wishes him the best in his new role!