People
Principal Investigator
Robert Pilawa-Podgurski, Associate Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California-Berkeley
Ph.D. 2012, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.Eng. 2007, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
B.S. 2005, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
B.S. 2005, Physics, MIT
Google Scholar Profile
UC Berkeley Faculty Profile
Phone: (510) 664-5171, E-mail: pilawa@berkeley.edu
Address: 573 Cory Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720
Robert Pilawa-Podgurski is currently an Associate Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he was an Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He received his BS, MEng, and PhD degrees from MIT. He performs research in the area of power electronics. His research interests include renewable energy applications, electric vehicles, energy harvesting, CMOS power management, high density and high efficiency power converters, and advanced control of power converters. Dr. Pilawa-Podgurski received the Chorafas Award for outstanding MIT EECS Master’s thesis, the Google Faculty Research Award in 2013, and the 2014 Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, given annually to one individual for outstanding contributions to the field of power electronics before the age of 35. In 2015, he received the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, the UIUC Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research in 2016, the UIUC Campus Distinguished Promotion Award in 2017, and the UIUC ECE Ronald W. Pratt Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award in 2017. He was the 2018 recipient of the IEEE Education Society Mac E. Van Valkenburg Award given for outstanding contributions to teaching unusually early in ones career. In 2023, he received the UC Berkeley EECS department Electrical Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award. He is co-author of fourteen IEEE prize papers.
Graduate Student Researchers
Rose Abramson
Ph.D. Candidate
Rose received the B.S. and M.Eng degree in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA in 2015 and 2016, respectively. After graduating, she worked at an energy and transport startup and later at Lutron Electronics, Inc. developing offline LED drivers. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, and is a 2019 NDSEG Fellow. Her research focus includes hybrid and resonant switched-capacitor circuits and high-performance DC-DC power conversion.
Rod Bayliss III
Ph.D. Student
Rod Bayliss III is a Ph.D. student in the Pilawa Power Electronics Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley. He previously received his B.S. and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2020 and 2021. His research interests include multi-level power converter design and control and high performance power magnetics design. Rod is a recipient of the Hertz Fellowship and the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship.
Nathan Biesterfeld
Ph.D. Student
Nathan received his B.S. degrees in electrical engineering and applied mathematics from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2022. His research is focused on dynamic modeling and high-performance control techniques for resonant and multilevel power converters.
Maggie Blackwell
Ph.D. Candidate
Margaret E. Blackwell received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Texas A\&M University, College Station, TX, USA in 2017 and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences in 2019 from the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, where she is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering. Her current research interests include hybrid switched-capacitor circuits focusing on the modeling and implementation of resonance operation, soft-switching techniques, and EMI mitigation strategies. She is a 2019 NSF Graduate Research Fellow.
Nathan Brooks
Ph.D. Candidate
Nathan Brooks received his B.S. degree from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2016 and M.S. degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018 both in Electrical Engineering. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering with the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests include fundamental circuit modeling, high-performance layout, passive component characterization, and high-density design of single-phase and multilevel power converters.
Samantha Coday
Ph.D. Candidate
Samantha Coday is a PhD candidate at University of California, Berkeley, advised by Dr. Robert Pilawa. Samantha received her Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, in 2017, from Southern Methodist University. She then completed her Masters in 2019, at UC Berkeley. Her current research interests are in the design of light-weight multilevel switched capacitor power converters with applications in aerospace. Samantha has been selected as a 2021 EECS Rising Star, a Cadence Women in Technology Scholarship winner and an Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor.
Kelly Fernandez
Ph.D. Candidate
Kelly received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland in 2016. She has held internships at Texas Instruments, Tesla, and Apple. She is currently pursing her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where her research focuses include multi-level converters, active buffer topologies, and control for high performance power conversion in electric vehicle and photovoltaic applications. She is a recipient of the UC Chancellor’s Fellowship and is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Outside of research, she enjoys being outdoors away from electronics by backpacking, running, cycling, and rock climbing.
Francesca Giardine
Ph.D. Student
Francesca Giardine received a B.S. in Engineering Science and B.A. in Mathematics and Statistics from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in May of 2020. Francesca is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, funded by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (awarded 2022). Francesca has a particular interest in single phase ac-dc converters with an emphasis on active buffering and control techniques. Outside of the lab Francesca enjoys running slowly, hiking, and trying local bakeries.
Logan Horowitz
Ph.D. Student
Logan received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY in 2018. Outside of power electronics, he enjoys bad jokes and bouldering.
Rahul Iyer
Ph.D. Student
Rahul Iyer received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, in 2020. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. His research interests include power converter design, modeling, and control in high-voltage applications, with specific interests in hybrid switched-capacitor and flying-capacitor multilevel converters.
Elisa Krause
Ph.D. Student
Elisa received her B.S. in electrical engineering from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests involve designing power dense solutions for space applications.
Sahana Krishnan
Ph.D. Student
Sahana Krishnan received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in May of 2018. After graduating, she spent three years working at Texas Instruments architecting power converter reference designs. She is currently pursuing graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley with a research emphasis on 48 V to point-of-load DC-DC hybrid switched-capacitor converters in automotive applications. This research has been motivated by her desire to utilize her industry experience to inform academic research direction and reduce the timeline from research investigation to industry adoption.
Tahmid Mahbub
Ph.D. Student
Tahmid Mahbub received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) from Cornell University in 2017. He spent the next 6 years working at Apple, focused on EE/hardware system integration and MCU hardware design. He is now a Ph.D. student in the Pilawa Power Electronics Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley.
Nagesh Patle
Ph.D. Student
Nagesh Patle received his B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, India, in 2021. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He He associated with Qualcomm Bangalore for his internship and job between 2020 and 2022. His research interests include reconfigurable switched-capacitor converters, high-efficiency hybrid switched-capacitor converters, multi-level converters, and power management integrated circuits. In 2021, he was the recipient of the Keshab K Parhi Endowment Prize for the best demonstrable Master’s thesis and also, the Institute Order of Merit Award for outstanding all-round performance with distinction in technology activities at IIT Kharagpur. In 2022, he is the recipient of the Berkeley Fellowship.
Haifah Sambo
Ph.D. Student
Haifah Sambo earned her B.S. degree from the University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA, in 2021. She is currently working towards her PhD degree in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include the design, control, and optimization of hybrid switched-capacitor converters. In 2021, Haifah received the GEM fellowship and the Chancellor’s fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2023, she was also awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Joseph Schaadt
Ph.D. Student
Joseph conducts research in conjunction with the UC Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Yicheng Zhu
Ph.D. Candidate
Yicheng Zhu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, advised by Professor Robert Pilawa-Podgurski. He received his B.Eng. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University in 2017 and 2020, respectively. His research interests include circuit topologies, control techniques, and analytical models of high-performance hybrid switched-capacitor converters with applications in data center power delivery. Yicheng was a recipient of the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Outstanding Student Scholarship, the Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award of Tsinghua University, the Berkeley Fellowship, in 2020, and the 2023 NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship, given annually to five Ph.D. students worldwide involved in research that spans all areas of computing innovation. In 2023, he received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE 24th Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics (COMPEL) and the Best Paper Award at the 2023 Open Compute Project (OCP) Future Technologies Symposium.
Fun fact: I was born on the first World Teachers’ Day, and my dream is to become a teacher : )
Jiarui Zou
Ph.D. Student
Jiarui Zou is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2021 with the Bronze Tablet and the Highest Honors. His research focuses on designing high-performance Hybrid Switched-Capacitor Converters for point-of-load power delivery, large-scale passive component surveys and characterizations, and high-performance converter cooling. He was the recipient of the M. Stanley Helm Award, Edward C. Jordan Award, and EECS Gold Fellowship. He was also awarded the Ackmann Family Scholarship, Brian and Sophie Leung Scholarship, Joseph W. Lyding Endowed Scholarship, and Tan Family Education Foundation Scholarship.
Post-Doctoral Researchers
Nathan Miles Ellis
Post-doctoral Researcher
Nathan Miles Ellis is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. He received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University College Cork, Ireland, in 2013, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 2017 and 2020 respectively. His research interests include Mixed Signal Integrated Circuit Design, Energy Harvesting, Renewable Energy Integration, Biomedical Devices, and spans several topics in high performance power converter design, including; Hybridized Switched-Capacitor Power Converters, Multi-Level Converters, and Adiabatic Gate-Drives.
Undergraduate Student Researchers
Suhrith Belamkonda
Undergraduate Researcher
Suhrith Bellamkonda is currently working towards his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Aside from being a part of the Pilawa Research Group, he’s also an active member of the avionics team of Space Enterprise at Berkeley, a club that aims to launch a rocket to the edge of space.
Ben Liao
Undergraduate Researcher
Ben Liao received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley in Fall 2022. He joined Pilawa Group as an undergraduate and is currently continuing to work in Pilawa Group to prepare for graduate education and/or industry. His work focuses mainly on capacitor loss modeling and is interested in working on sustainable transportation solutions in the future.
Marrin Nerenberg
Undergraduate Researcher
Marrin is currently working towards her B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Her work focuses on supporting multi-level inverter projects for electric aircraft applications. She is involved with Formula Electric at Berkeley (FSAE) where she works with the motor inverter for Berkeley’s first electric race car. Marrin is also a member of the Society of Women Engineers where she has mentored high school students through introductory circuitry projects.
Evan Sandoval
Undergraduate Researcher
Evan Sandoval is currently working towards his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Bioengineering. He is currently working on developing a custom electronic load to stress-test power converters. Outside of class, he works with the high voltage battery and motor systems as a part of Formula Electric at Berkeley. Evan also volunteers with UC Berkeley’s Hispanic Engineers and Scientists club to provide outreach to K-12 schools near campus. In his free time, he enjoys surfing and soaking up the sun on memorial glade.
Anya Shah
Undergraduate Researcher
Alumni
Post-Doc Researchers
Dr. Ting Ge (2020-2022)
Dr. Tomas Modeer (2016-2017)
PhD Researchers
Sophia Chou, PhD (2021) – now at Enphase
Zitao Liao, PhD (2021) – now at Tesla
Nathan Pallo, PhD (2021) –
Wen Chuen Liu, PhD (2020)
Pourya Assem, PhD (2020)
Zichao Ye, PhD (2020)
Christopher Barth, PhD (2019, UIUC)
Andrew Stillwell, PhD (2019, UIUC) – now an Assistant Professor at UIUC
Enver Candan, PhD (2019, UIUC)
Yutian Lei, PhD (2017, UIUC)
Shibin Qin, PhD (2017, UIUC)
Master’s Research
Yizhe Zhang, MS (2018, UIUC)
Pei Han Ng, MS (2018, UIUC)
Derek Heeger, MS (2016, UIUC)
Felix Hsiao, MS (2016, UIUC)
Joshua Garcia-Sheridan, MS studies (2015, UIUC)
Aaron Ho, MS (2015, UIUC)
Ben Macy, MS (2015, UIUC)
Yuqi Li, MS (2015, UIUC)
Roy Bell, MS (2014, UIUC)
Josiah McClurg, MS (2014, UIUC)
Marcel Schuck, MS (2013, UIUC)
Ryan May, MS (2013, UIUC)
Visiting Researchers
Ivan Z Petric, PhD exchange (2021-2022) from University of Padova
Max Syu, PhD exchange (2019-2020) from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
Mads Graungaard Taul, PhD exchange (2019-2020) from Aalborg University
Juan Colmenares, PhD exchange (2016) from KTH – Royal Institute of Technology
Undergraduate Thesis Research
Intae Moon, BS (2016, UIUC)
Thomas Navidi, BS (2016, UIUC)
Benedict Foo, BS (2015, UIUC)
Rodrigo Serna, BS (2014, UIUC)
Jingyi Ma, BS (2014, UIUC)
Yujia Zhang, BS (2014, UIUC)
Felix Hsiao, BS (2014, UIUC)
Ziming Chen, BS (2013, UIUC)
Sutchaya Lertburapa, BS (2013, UIUC)
Sartaj Grewal, BS (2013, UIUC)
Christopher Barth, BS (2012, UIUC)
Undergraduate Researchers
William Vavrik (2022-2023) – now at UIUC MS program
Linshen Liu (2022-2023) – now at UT Austin MS program
Amanda Jackson (2019-2023) – now at MIT PhD program
Nicole Stokowski () – now at UIUC MS program
Raya Mahony () – now at UIUC MS program
Kelsey Levante ()
Oscar Azofeifa Castillo (UIUC)
Adwaita Dani (UIUC)
Jihyun Lee (UIUC)
Anika Manzo (UIUC)
Michelle Rentauskas (UIUC)
Eric Saathoff (UIUC)
Sunyu Wang (UIUC)
Won Ho Chung, undergraduate research (2016-2017, UIUC)
Carl Haken, undergraduate research (2015-2016, UIUC)
Mark Hirsbrunner, undergraduate research (2014-15, UIUC)
Corinne Cannavale, undergraduate research (2013-15, UIUC)
Brady Salz, undergraduate research (2014, UIUC)
Emma He, undergraduate research (2014, UIUC)
Chenyang Xu, undergraduate research (2013, UIUC)
Andrew Morrison, undergraduate research (2013-2014, UIUC)
Ruichen Zhao, undergraduate research (2013, UIUC)
Jeff Wheeler (2012-2013, UIUC)
Charles Wu (2012-2013, UIUC)