Dr. Bilal Akin

Career Highlights

Prize Paper Award (2nd Place), IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2020

Faculty Research Award from Jonsson Engineering School, 2020

Excellence in Teaching Award from Jonsson Engineering School, 2019

Prize Paper Award (1st Place), IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2018

Outstanding Editor Award from IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2017

National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2015

Research Areas

Fault Diagnosis and Condition Monitoring of Power Electronics Components and Drive Systems

Control of Electric Motors and Drives, Self-Commissioning, Auto-Tuning and Sensorless Control of AC Drives

Power Electronics, Digital Power Control and Management

Applications of Control Theory, Machine Learning and Signal Processing to Energy Conversion Systems

Recent Patents

Methods of determining operating conditions of silicon carbide power MOSFET devices associated with aging, related circuits and computer program products, The University of Texas System Board of Regents, 2022

Methods of monitoring conditions associated with aging of silicon carbide power MOSFET devices in-situ, related circuits and computer program products, The University of Texas System Board of Regents, 2022

Methods and systems for control of parallel connected motor drives, Schlumberger Technology Corp. and The University of Texas System Board of Regents, 2019

Power Electronics Professor Named IEEE Fellow

Dr. Bilal Akin, professor of electrical and computer engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas, was named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in January 2023 for his contributions to the control, diagnosis and condition monitoring of AC drives.

IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization. According to IEEE.org, the fellow distinction is reserved for people with exemplary accomplishments in their specific fields and is conferred by the organization’s board of directors. Fewer than .1 percent of IEEE members were named fellows this year.

“Dr. Akin’s research is very relevant to the Jonsson School’s focus on expanding and building significant thrust in energy- and transportation-related technologies,” said Dr. Dinesh Bhatia, professor and interim co-head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering within the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. “Power electronics and motor drives are fundamental to our focus on energy and transportation systems. He is a renowned power electronics and motor drives expert who collaborates extensively with many industry partners.”

Akin’s research mainly focuses on the design, control and condition monitoring of power electronics systems and motor drives. AC devices are used to control the speed of electrical motors and to optimize various applications that rely on electric motors. His research is applied to technologies including electric vehicles and renewable energy systems and improved reliability of electronic devices.

Akin has previously served as co-editor in chief of IEEE’s Transactions on Vehicular Technologies. He also served as guest editor-in-chief and associate editor for other IEEE societies, chaired an IEEE conference in 2021 and served as steering committee member and technical program chair for several IEEE conferences. He was recognized for his efforts with a Prize Paper Award in 2018 by the IEEE Industry Applications Society.

“To me, IEEE represents top-notch quality in the engineering field,” Akin said. “I have been actively publishing in IEEE to share our findings with the finest engineering readers. It has been an honor to serve such an organization in various positions.”

As the director of the Power Electronics and Drives Lab Akin has conducted research on power electronics and motor drives for more than 15 years. Prior to joining the University in 2012, he worked in industry as a research and development engineer at Toshiba Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. (TI). At UT Dallas, he has completed more than 30 industry-sponsored projects and contributed to many products commercialized by companies including SLB; Altair Engineering; Nidec Corporation; Toshiba Corporation; San’an Optoelectronics Co., Ltd.; Qorvo; GCI Technologies; and SRC, Inc. He also earned a CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2015 and received an Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019.

“Dr. Akin’s research excellence is complemented by his passion for teaching meaningful and practical fundamental courses,” Bhatia said. “He is an award-winning teacher who has taken his research findings and valuable insights to the classroom and transformed the educational experience of the next generation of engineers.”

Akin has published over 200 papers and advised 17 PhD students, and he currently supervises eight PhD students on his research team.

“I am passionate about solving difficult engineering problems,” Akin said. “My team has been developing new solutions and products commercialized by our industry sponsors for many years. We are challenged directly by practicing engineers in industry, so we work really hard to solve technical problems and try to be among the best in our field. It is great to know that many of our solutions have become real products.”

Akin and his colleague Dr. Carlos Busso, also from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, were both named IEEE fellows.