Dr. Paras Mandal is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Director of Power & Renewable Energy Systems (PRES) Laboratory within the ECE Department at UTEP. His research interests include electric power systems operations and markets, renewable energy integration and forecasting, machine learning applications to power grid, and smart grid. He has authored more than 100 scientific articles and proven technical, academic and leadership skill with various awards and honors. He is a recipient of best papers award by IEEE and Young Engineer award from IEEJ. He participates and assumes leadership roles in multiple professional groups within the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES). He is a Senior Member of IEEE, Vice-Chair of IEEE PEEC award subcommittee, Secretary of IEEE New Product Development (NPD) Committee – Selection & Quality Control Subcommittee, and Member of various IEEE working groups and subcommittees. Dr. Mandal is a regular reviewer of journals and conferences and, serves as an Editorial Board of the journals and a session chair and panelist in IEEE PES conferences.