Dr. Alexander Apostolov received MS degree in Electrical Engineering, MS in Applied Mathematics and Ph.D. from the Technical University in Sofia, Bulgaria. He has 40 years’ experience in power systems protection, automation, control and communications. He is Editor-in-Chief of PAC World.

He is IEEE Fellow and Member of the Power Systems Relaying Committee and Substations C0 Subcommittee. He is past Chairman of the Relay Communications Subcommittee, serves on many IEEE PES Working Groups and is Chairman of Working Groups C2 “Role of Protective Relaying in Smart Grid”.

He is member of IEC TC57 working groups 10, 17, 18 and 19.

He is Distinguished Member of CIGRE and Convenor of CIGRE WG B5.53 ”Test Strategy for Protection, Automation and Control (PAC) functions in a full digital substation based on IEC 61850 applications” and member of several other CIGRE B5 working groups.

He holds four patents and has authored and presented more than 480 technical papers.

He is IEEE Distinguished Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa.

Dr. Murty V.V.S. Yalla has been with Beckwith Electric Co. since 1989 and presently holds the position of President. He received a BSEE and MSEE from India and a Ph.D. in EE from the University of New Brunswick, Canada in 1987. From 1988 to 1989, he taught and conducted research on digital power system protection at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada.

He holds five U.S. patents in the areas of digital controls and protective relays. He is the convener of the IEC TC95/MT4. He was a U.S. delegate to the CIGRÈ WGs on Modern Techniques for Protecting and Monitoring Generating Plants and Power Transformers. He was also a member of the NERC System Protection and Control Subcommittee.

In 2006, Dr. Yalla was elected to Fellow grade by the IEEE Fellow Committee for his contributions in computer relays for power systems. He is presently the Chair of the Rotating Machinery Protection Subcommittee of the IEEE PES Power System Relaying Committee. He was the chairman of the working group which developed IEEE Standard C37.102-2006 "Guide for AC Generator Protection." He co-authored an IEEE PES tutorial on the "Protection of Synchronous Generators." Dr. Yalla received the IEC 1906 Award in 2010 which honors the IEC experts around the world in recognizing their exceptional recent achievements and contributions to the IEC committees.

Wanda Reder is the Chief Strategy Officer at S&C Electric Company. Prior to S&C, she has held leadership positions at two major investor-owned utilities. Her pioneering work has led to smart grid deployments and wind, solar energy, and utility-scale battery storage integration into traditional utility systems. An IEEE Fellow, Reder was recognized with the 2014 IEEE Richard M. Emerson Award for her leadership in the IEEE Smart Grid program and in the continued growth of the Power and Energy Society (PES), including the creation of its Scholarship Fund program. Reder was the first woman president of PES and is responsible for the launch of the IEEE Smart Grid, positioning IEEE as the leading source for information on smart-grid technology. Wanda is a member of the US Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee. She is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a candidate for 2017 IEEE President-Elect.

Rohan Perera received his Master’s in Engineering from the University of Waterloo and BSEE with honors from the University of Western Ontario. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario.

Rohan has been working for Hydro One Networks, Inc. for the past 16 years and presently holds the position of senior technical coordinator in the protections support team. Rohan’s team is team responsible for developing test procedures for protection relay testing and provides technical support to Hydro One field staff.

Ritwik Chowdhury received his bachelor of applied science degree from the University of British Columbia and is currently pursuing a master of engineering degree at the University of Toronto. He joined Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. in 2012 as a power engineer in R&D and now serves as an application specialist. His research interests include the analysis and control of generators and their systems, power converters, and generator and line protection. He is a member of IEEE.

Adam Rudd graduated from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in 2008 with a diploma in Electrical Engineering Technology. He spent 2 years performing field service for industrial and utility clients with Pace Technologies Inc.  In 2010 he joined EPCOR’s Substation Operations group, where he became a journeyman Power System Electrician in 2013. He joined EPCOR’s Substation Engineering team in 2014, in his current role as Electrical Technologist, Substation Integration.

Vijay was born in Pondicherry, India. He attended Pondicherry University and graduated with a B.Tech degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1998.  He then joined Nagarjuna Fertilizers as Electrical Operations & Maintenance Engineer. After 18 months, he joined Alstom as Field Engineer in Protection & Control. Vijay joined GE in 2001 as Installation & Field Services Engineer for GE Power Generation business. He traveled extensively in Asia, Middle East & Africa for 5 years being part of several power generation station projects. In 2005, he moved to Canada to pursue his graduate studies. Vijay completed his M.E.Sc. in Power System Protection with collaborative research work for GE Multilin in Markham Canada. In 2007, he joined GE Multilin, now a division of GE Grid Solutions – Grid Automation, as System Engineer. He built extensive research experience in designing relays and developing algorithms for protection relays. From 2009 to 2013, Vijay successfully led new product introduction validation and compliance lab teams for GE Multilin delivering significant productivity and innovation in the form of test automation. He was responsible for establishing the state of the art design and test facility in Markham – GE Grid IQ Innovation Center in 2012.

In 2014, he moved to his current role as Senior Engineering Manager for industrial and distribution portfolio. He leads teams responsible for new product introductions, and sustaining engineering on a portfolio of about 50 products.

Vijay enjoys yoga and meditation and has been a champion of stress management segment for Health Ahead initiatives at his site.

Ilia Voloh received his Electrical Engineering degree from Ivanovo State Power University, Russia. After graduation he worked for Moldova Power Company for many years in various progressive roles in Protection and Control field. He is currently a Consulting Engineer - Protection with GE Energy Grid Solutions in Markham Ontario, and he has been heavily involved in the development of UR-series of relays. His areas of interest are current differential relaying, phase comparison, distance relaying and advanced communications for protective relaying. Ilia authored and co-authored more than 40 papers presented at major North American Protective Relaying conferences and an author of 6 patents. He is a member of the IEC TC 95 committee, member of the IEEE PSRC main committee and a senior member of the IEEE.

Peter Fong is a Professional Engineer registered in the province of British Columbia.  Peter was previously an Application Specialist with OMICRON electronics Corp. USA and has vast experience with relay and substation testing equipment. Peter is a member of IEEE and has given papers in various technical conferences.  He is currently the General Manager of Sequence Instruments Inc. in Vancouver, Canada.

Dr. Fred Steinhauser was born in Austria. He studied Electrical Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology, where he obtained his diploma in 1986 and received a Dr. of Technical Sciences in 1991. In 1998 he joined OMICRON, where he worked on several aspects of testing power system protection. Since 2000 he worked as a product manager with a focus on substation communication issues. Since 2014 he is responsible for Power Utility Communication business of OMICRON. Fred Steinhauser is a member of WG10 in the TC57 of the IEC and contributes the standard IEC 61850. He is also a member of SC B5 of CIGRÉ and contributed to the synchrophasor standard IEEE C37.118.1.

Christopher Pritchard was born in 1982 in Dortmund / Germany. He received his diploma in Electrical Engineering at the University of Applied Science in Dortmund in 2006. He joined OMICRON electronics in 2006 where he worked in application software development in the field of testing solutions for protection and measurement systems and is now the responsible Product Manager for simulation based testing solutions.

Stephan Geiger graduated from the Technical College of Bregenz (Austria) with a focus on Electrical Engineering in 2007. He joined OMICRON electronics GmbH in Austria in 2008 as an Application Engineer for protective relay applications, where he worked on application notes and custom applications, provided training and later took over project management responsibilities.

In 2012 he became Product Manager with responsibility for OMICRON's recloser control testing solutions.

Brady Jenkins has 15 years working in the Power Utility business. He started out in Substations, Automation and Testing, then in Generation and Transmission. His last position was working for Murray Power as a Compliance Manager over the NERC standards for all Testing and Maintenance for the company. He studied Electronics Engineering at Weber State University and after graduating taught the Power and Motor courses for the Engineering Department. He also continues to work with the Salt Lake Community College Substation Apprenticeship program that awards journeyman licenses to those that finish the four year program. In 2014 he joined OMICRON as the Regional Specialist for Asset Management and Area Sales Manager for the Southwest Region.

Kevin Donaldson joined OMICRON in 2014 as a Training and Application Specialist. He has 20 years of experience in the Electric Power Industry at different levels, within various organizations. Kevin is a Certified Engineering Technologist (C.E.T.) and has a diploma in Adult Education from St. Francis Xavier University.

Kevin has a broad knowledge and extensive experience in protective relaying schemes, including: electrical power system fault analysis, automation & control design, and testing & commissioning electrical grid assets.

Kevin has presented lectures at Industry Conferences, including: Hands-On Relay School (Western Energy Institute), CEATI Conference – Protection & Control Workshop, Smart Grid Technologies Symposium and numerous lectures & training events.

Thomas Renaudin, Electrical Engineer, was born 1981 in Bordeaux, France. He obtained his master's degree in Electrical Engineering from INSA in Strasbourg. He joined VATECH T&D Grenoble (later Siemens T&D) in 2006 and worked as Field Supervisor and Commissioning Engineer on many international switchgear projects. Thomas Renaudin joined OMICRON in 2009 as technical Application Engineer with a particular focus on Primary Equipment testing. He is currently Application Specialist for Primary Assets at OMICRON Canada.

William Yu is currently the Area Sales Manager for OMICRON Electronics Canada Corp. and is based in Toronto, ON.

Previously, he worked for OMICRON electronics in their Asia-Pacific headquarters as a Technical and Applications Engineer for supporting customers on various advanced electrical test equipment, such as power transformer test system, dielectric frequency response analyzer and protection relay test set. Afterwards, he took over the responsibility of technical sales and served numerous key utilities in the Asia-Pacific region. Over the years, he conducted many technical trainings, performed field measurements of high voltage assets and demonstrated advanced diagnostic equipment in the field. Subsequently he was transferred to OMICRON's office in Waltham, Massachusetts where he worked as a Regional Application Specialist with the focus on partial discharge measurement of various high voltage apparatuses and instrument transformer calibration and field testing.

His experiences include performing high voltage measurement tests on power transformers, instrument transformers and power cable, and various secondary tests on digital and E/M protective relays. He received the BEng (Hon) degree in Electrical Engineering in 2006 and the MSc degree in Electrical Engineering in 2010 from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.