Dr. Sahar Azad is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where she has been a faculty member since 2018. She earned her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2014, specializing in power systems.
Following her PhD, Dr. Azad joined KU Leuven in Belgium as a postdoctoral fellow, where she worked on DC grid protection as part of the MEDOW project, a Marie Curie Initial Training Network funded by the European Commission. She then served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta from 2015 to 2017 before joining the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Azad’s research focuses on the protection and control of AC-DC power systems, with an emphasis on HVDC systems, renewable energy sources and their integration into the grid. She is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery and actively contributes to CIGRE and IEEE working groups. She currently serves as vice-chair of the IEEE HVDC & FACTS Subcommittee.
In recognition of her contributions, Dr. Azad was awarded the Marsland Faculty Fellowship from the University of Waterloo in 2023.
