Saifur RAHMAN, IEEE President-elect, the founding director of the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech. He has served as the chair of the US National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for International Science and Engineering. And he is the founder of BEM Controls, LLC, a software company which provides building energy efficiency solutions. He is an IEEE fellow and the Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power & Energy Society, and have lectured in over 30 countries on Smart Grid, IoT and Sustainable Energy in six continents.

He has been long engaged in the research of Alternate energy, Smart grid, Critical infrastructure, assessment and modeling, Uncertainty evaluation and Environmental impacts. He was awarded the IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000 for outstanding achievements and contributions to IEEE. He received the Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award from PES in 2013, the Meritorious Service Award in 2012, and the IEEE-USA Professional Achievement Award in 2011.