Eilyan Bitar's Home Page

Eilyan Bitar

Associate Professor
David D. Croll Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Cornell University

Email: x@y with x = eyb5 y = cornell.edu

See here for publications.

Research Interests: My research interests are in the areas of robust and stochastic optimization, control, and game theory with a focus on applications to sustainable transportation and electric power systems.

About Me: I am an Associate Professor and the David D. Croll Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. At Cornell, I also currently serve as the Faculty-in-Residence for Hu Shih Hall. I received my BS and PhD from UC Berkeley in 2006 and 2011, where I was advised by Kameshwar Poolla. Prior to joining Cornell in 2012, I spent one year as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology (hosted by Adam Wierman and Steven Low) and UC Berkeley (hosted by Pravin Varaiya and Kameshwar Poolla). In 2016, I was an invited Visiting Scientist at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing as part of a research program on Algorithms and Uncertainty. I am a recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER), the Einhorn Community-Engaged Practice and Innovation Award, the John and Janet McMurtry Fellowship, the John G. Maurer Fellowship, and the Robert F. Steidel Jr. Fellowship. In addition to my academic research, I have also served as a consultant and scientific advisor to several major US companies, including Amazon, Uber Technologies, Avangrid, and Con Edison.

Some Recent Talks:

Energy and Uncertainty

Distributionally Robust Optimal Control Thumbnail

Distributionally Robust Regret Optimal Control

Achieving Reliable Coordination Thumbnail

Achieving Reliable Coordination of Electric Vehicle Charging

Unlocking the Value of Electric Vehicles Thumbnail

Unlocking the Value of Electric Vehicles as Grid Assets

Announcements:

(April '24) Honored to receive the Einhorn Community-Engaged Practice and Innovation Award in recognition of our work with NYSEG to understand and manage the impact of electric vehicle adoption on the power grid.
(Dec '23) Feras Al Taha wins the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE CDC 2023 for our paper: A Distributionally Robust Approach to Regret Optimal Control using the Wasserstein Distance
(April '23) Opinion article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: How millions of electric vehicles can help--not hurt--the grid - 4/14/2023
(May '22) Congratulations to Feras Al Taha for being awarded the prestigious NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship to develop data-driven learning and control methods to unlock the value of electric vehicles as grid assets!
(April '22) The Environmental and Energy Studies Institute (EESI) highlights our work on the grid integration of plug-in electric vehicles: Seven EESI Briefing Panelists Leading on Climate Policy and Practice - 4/20/2022
(March '22) Discussion with the Sierra Club about the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency mining: Crypto Throws the Coal Industry a Lifeline - 3/26/2022
(Jan '22) I'm excited to be joining Amazon as a part-time Visiting Academic supporting their efforts to reach net-zero carbon by 2040.
(June '21) Presented at EESI congressional briefing on the role of electric vehicles as grid assets (Slides, Video) - 6/25/2021
(May '21) Discussion with Vaughn Golden on NPR's Morning Edition about environmental concerns surrounding Bitcoin mining - 5/7/2021
(May '21) Discussion with the GW Hatchet about energy equity and the need for active community engagement - 5/10/2021
(April '21) Opinion article in the Albany Times Union: Prepare Grid Now to Power EVs - 4/10/2021
(Jan '21) Excited to be working with The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, and collaborators on a Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) that will explore how to deploy diverse renewable energy resources to save our great rivers.
(May '20) Congratulations to Kia Khezeli for being awarded the 2020 Cornell ECE Outstanding PhD TA Award!
(Nov '19) OptimizEV, a smart electric vehicle charging pilot developed in collaboration with NYSEG is currently underway! Learn more about it here.
(May '19) Congratulations to Polina Alexeenko for being awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to explore the algorithmic foundations of power grid optimization and control!
(Feb '19 - Jan '20) I'm spending my sabbatical as a Visiting Scientist at Uber's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG).
(July '18) Promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.
(June '18) Invited to participate in NSF panel on NSF EPCN CAREER Awardees as part of the 2018 American Control Conference in Milwaukee, WI.
(Aug '17) Participated in NSF panel on NSF CAREER Awardees: Emerging Research in Smart Grid as part of the 2017 IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications in Kohala Coast, HI.
(May '17) Participated in panel on "Smart Grid and Energy Services" as part of LIDS Smart Urban Infrastructures Workshop at MIT.
(Feb '17) Delivered a Keynote Lecture on "Competition in Electricity Markets: Equilibria, Paradoxes, and Biases" at the 12th CSL Student Conference at UIUC.
(Aug '16 - Dec '16) Serving as a Visiting Scientist in the program on Algorithms and Uncertainty at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley. Support for one semester is gratefully acknowledged.
(Jan '16) Congratulations to Subhonmesh Bose on starting his new position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UIUC.
(Dec '14) Subhonmesh Bose receives the Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainability to study the design of optimization algorithms to support the deep integration of renewable energy resources into the electric power grid. Support for two years is gratefully acknowledged.
(Aug '14) Subhonmesh Bose (PhD, Caltech) joins our research group as a postdoctoral scholar.
(Mar '14) Received the NSF CAREER award to investigate the design, optimization, and economics of distributed and renewable power systems. Support for five years is gratefully acknowledged.

Media Coverage:

(Nov '19) "Cornell Research Drives NYSEG Electric Car Charging Pilot," By Melanie Lefkowitz (Cornell Chronicle)
(Nov '19) "Electric Vehicle Charging in the Energy Smart Community," (AVANGRID News)
(Feb '19) "Can wind and solar save the Amazon? New grant program funds novel conservation collaborations," by Kate Frazer (Cornell Chronicle)
(Dec '16) "From the Inside: Algorithms and Uncertainty," by Avrim Blum (Simons Institute)
A retrospective on the recently completed program on Algorithms and Uncertainty at the Simons Institute.
(Sept '16) "Cornell Researchers Aim to Unleash 'Smart Meter' Potential," by Blaine Friedlander (Cornell Chronicle)
(Jan '16) "Engineering Today, Energy Tomorrow," by Geoffrey Giller (Cornell Engineering Magazine)
(Oct '15) "A Beautiful Defense for Smart Grids," by Sarah Bates (NSF Discoveries)
(Mar '15) "Adding Renewable Energy to the Power Grid Requires Flexibility," by Anne Ju (Cornell Chronicle)
(Sept '14) "Experiment Makes Energy Savings a Game," by Anne Ju (Cornell Chronicle)
A recent article in the Cornell Chronicle describing our experimental demand response pilot with ConEdison.
(Oct '13) "Incentives to save electricity grow as plants power down," by Adam Smeltz (The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) - 10/5/2013
(Sept '11) "Want To Blame State's Largest Power Outage Ever on One Worker? Not So Fast," by Emma G. Gallegos (LAist) - 9/10/2011

Workshops:

(Aug '16) Tutorial on "Energy and Uncertainty" (Part I and Part II).
Delivered jointly with Adam Wierman as part of the Algorithms and Uncertainty Boot Camp. Berkeley, CA.
(Sept '12) Co-organized mini-course on "Renewable Energy Integration: Challenges and Research Directions."
Held in conjunction with the 2nd Advanced school on ICT for Future Energy Systems. Trento, Italy.
(June '11) Co-organized workshop on "Control, Modeling, and Optimization Challenges in the Smart Grid."
Held in conjunction with the 30th IEEE American Control Conference. San Francisco, CA.