Walmir Freitas

Professor

UNICAMP/FEEC/DSEE
Av. Albert Einstein, no. 400
13083-852 - Campinas, SP, Brazil
Phone: +55 19 3521-3740
Fax: +55 19 3521-3866

walmir (you know what) unicamp . br


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ORCID
Lattes (in Portuguese)

Short-Bio:

I am a Full Professor at the Department of Systems and Energy (DSE) of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FEEC) of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), one of the best universities in Latin America regularly classified as top 3 in the main academic rankings, such as QS Quacquarelli Symonds and Times Higher Education. I earned the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), in 1994 and 1996, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in 2001, all in Brazil.

My research interests include integration of distributed energy resources into transmission and distribution systems, application of renewable and alternative energy, analysis of power systems, power system protection, control and automation, power quality, and sustainable energy systems. In collaboration with my team, I have co-authored more than 70 papers published in peer-reviewed top-class journals and more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed top-class conferences, which have been highly cited. As of January 2022, these are the main citation metrics considering the most relevant scientific databases: ISI Web of Science – Publons: number of citations: 2,388, H-index: 30; Scopus: number of citations: 3,335, H-index: 31; Google Scholar: number of citations 5,279, H-index: 35; IEEE Xplore: number of downloads/views: +85,000.

I am also a co-inventor of 2 patents and 1 registered and licensed software, known as SisGD, which is commercialized by a major Brazilian IT company and has been employed for over a decade by Brazilian utilities for distribution planning and decision-making process considering the integration of distributed energy resources. I am also a co-author of a technical book on short-circuit analysis, written in Portuguese, that sold more than 2,500 copies and has been adopted by young engineers to fill the gap between theory and practice and by senior engineers to update their knowledge. The main contribution of this book is its technical-theoretical approach based on the experiences of the authors.

I operate an active research program supported by industry and government agencies. As Principal Investigator (PI), I have participated in more than 50 R&D projects for Brazilian, Canadian, and Indian utilities and government agencies. These projects have attracted more than R$ 200,000,000 (~US$ 40,000,000) in investments. As one of the tangible results from these projects, I can mention the implementation of one of the largest, one-of-a-kind, living laboratories in Latin America for integration of emerging technologies into electrical energy systems. More information about this living laboratory can be found at: tinyurl.com/2mmkt688

I have served as advisory/editorial board member, editor, associate editor, guest associate editor, technical committee member and reviewer for several international journals and conferences. I was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery and IEEE Power Engineering Letters from 2014 to 2021, and Guest Editor for special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, and IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution. In 2018, I received the Outstanding Reviewer Award from IEEE Transactions on Power Systems. I was the Chair of the IEEE/PES Working Group on Power Quality Data Analytics from 2018 to 2020, which, during my period as a chair, received the IEEE PES T&D Committee Award for Outstanding Technical Report. I was a member of the Board of Directors of NSERC Energy Storage Technology Network (NEST), one of the largest Canadian research projects on application of energy storage. I have served as invited panelist in more than 10 IEEE/PES Conferences and Meetings and organized several Panel and Special Sessions. In 2015, I received the Zeferino Vaz Award, the most prestigious award granted by UNICAMP, for my performance as an outstanding researcher from 2009 to 2014. Since 2006, I have been awarded by CNPq (the main Brazilian federal research agency) with the Research Productivity Grant (Tier 1) given to the top Brazilian researchers based strictly on scientific productivity metrics.

I have completed the supervision of more than 50 Ph.D. students, M.Sc. students, and post-doctoral researchers. In 2013, a Ph.D. dissertation completed under my supervision received the Ph.D. Dissertation CAPES Award as the best national Ph.D. dissertation completed in 2012 in Electrical Engineering, the most prestigious Brazilian Ph.D. award. In addition, two Ph.D. dissertations completed under my supervision received the Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award from FEEC/UNICAMP in 2013 and 2018, an annual award. Most of my former students have established a successful career on top universities and research centers in Brazil and abroad. In addition, a few of my former students, under my guidance and supervision, have co-founded a consulting and development company with revenues superior to R$ 1,000,000 per year.

At UNICAMP, I have taught several undergraduate and graduate courses related to the energy system area. I have always earned good evaluation scores from the students and have consistently been ranked top 10% instructors over the past 15 years. I have been nominated several times to the Excellence Academic Award and invited multiple times to be the class patron of the undergraduate students. In 2020, I received the Educator Excellence Award from UNICAMP, the most prestigious award recognizing the quality of educators.

In the past, I collaborated intensively with the University of Alberta, Canada, where I worked as Post-Doctoral Fellow and Visiting Professor in several opportunities between 2002 and 2014, collaborating with Prof. Wilsun Xu. More recently, I have started a collaboration with the Centre for Urban Energy, at Ryerson University, Canada, where I worked as a Distinguished Visiting Professor from 2016 to 2017, collaborating with Prof. Bala Venkatesh. Other relevant international collaborations established mainly through student exchanges are with the University of Texas at Austin, USA, collaborating with Prof. Surya Santoso, and the University of Melbourne, Australia, collaborating with Prof. Luis (Nando) Ochoa.


Last update: Feb-22