Ian Hiskens receives MA Sargent Medal for a career of excellence in electrical engineering

Ian Hiskens, Vennema Professor of Engineering, received the 2020 M A Sargent Medal “for longstanding eminence in science or the practice of electrical engineering.”

The medal is the highest award of the Electrical College and the Information, Telecommunications, and Electronics Engineering College boards of Engineers Australia.

Hiskens, who joined the faculty in 2008, specializes in power system analysis, and analysis and control of nonlinear non-smooth dynamical systems. In particular, he studies power system dynamics and control, wind power, grid controllability, and inverse problems.

He has made fundamental contributions to the study of power system dynamics, such as establishing theoretical and practical techniques to predict voltage collapse, and creating trajectory sensitivity analysis techniques for hybrid dynamical systems. Much of his research in recent years has focused on improving the integration of renewable energy into the grid.

Prof. Hiskens earned bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from the Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education, and his PHD from The University of Newcastle, Australia. He spent more than a decade with the Queensland Electricity Commission, where he held the positions of EMS Security Applications Engineer and Planning Engineer Transmission Systems, before returning to academia.

He served two consecutive terms as Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Institute for Research and Education in Power System Dynamics (IREP), and is a Fellow of IEEE and Engineers Australia.

Hiskens will be presented with the medal later this year.