Saifur Rahman

Professor and Director

Saifur Rahman is the Joseph R. Loring Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech and the founding Director of the Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute in the United States. He also directs the university's Center for Energy and the Global Environment. He received a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stony Brook University in 1975 and a PhD in power systems from Virginia Tech in 1978. His research covers renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart grids, the energy internet, blockchain and IoT sensor integration, and he has published more than 140 journal papers. He served as President and CEO of the IEEE in 2023, President of the IEEE Power and Energy Society in 2018-2019 and IEEE Vice President for Publications in 2006. He is the founding editor-in-chief of IEEE Electrification Magazine and IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, a Life Fellow of the IEEE and an IEEE Millennium Medal winner. He chaired the US National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for International Science and Engineering from 2010 to 2013 and founded BEM Controls, LLC, a building energy management software company.