This semester, the SPARK Lab celebrates its 10th anniversary. The group was established by Dan M. Ionel, PhD, IEEE Fellow, shortly after starting at UK as ECE Professor and the inaugural L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and welcomed its first postdoctoral researcher and PhD student in early 2016.
This semester yet another generational transition of electrical engineering (EE) PhD students takes place in the SPARK Lab, which is affiliated with the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) at the University of Kentucky (UK) Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering.
SPARK Lab researchers within the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Kentucky Pigman College of Engineering received the best poster award for a paper at the 2025 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) International Transportation Electrification Conference & Expo (ITEC) in Anaheim, California.
SPARK Lab researchers within the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Kentucky Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering received a best student demo award at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Electric Machines and Drives (IEMDC), which was held in Houston, TX.
For the current academic year, 2024-2025, UK is the school with the most students (5) awarded as PES Scholars, out of the total of 84 high-achieving undergraduates in electrical engineering, who have been selected from 55 universities across the USA, Canada & Puerto Rico.
SPARK Laboratory and Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) research students participated in the recent edition of the ICRERA Conference, which was held in Nagasaki, Japan. The annual series of conferences, which covers topics of renewable and alternative energy, is organized together with the IEEE and held previous editions in the US and internationally, including in Canada, United Kingdom, and France.
SPARK Lab researchers within the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department presented a record number of 11 papers at this year’s edition of the IEEE ECCE Congress.
