Payman Dehghanian, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, was recognized recently for his academics and leadership.
Dehghanian was selected as the top graduate student among all engineering disciplines in Texas and received the 2016 Jimmy H. Smith, Ph.D., P.E. Graduate Scholarship from the Texas Engineering Foundation. He was nominated by the Texas A&M College of Engineering and was the only representative from Texas A&M.
He was also selected as a potential future leader by IEEE, and received the support from IEEE Region 5 to attend the IEEE-USA Future Leader Forum 2016. Dehghanian was the only representative of Texas A&M selected for this recognition.
Dehghanian was one of two recipients in all engineering disciplines to receive the Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid-of-Research. He was selected out of more than 130 awardees nationwide in all various fields of science.
Dehghanian, who’s under the advisement of Dr. Mladen Kezunovic, the Eugene E. Webb Professor in the department, is the current leader of the Texas A&M student branch joint chapter of the IEEE PELS-PES-IAS. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Tehran in 2009 and his master's degree from Sharif University of Technology in 2011, both in electrical engineering. His research interests include power system protection and control, power system reliability, asset management, maintenance scheduling, renewable integration and smart-grid applications.
His recent honors include receiving a 2nd Place Prize for Best Poster Award at the 2016 IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Conference and Exposition, a research grant scholarship from the American Public Power Association under the Demonstration of Energy and Efficiency Development (DEED) Program, being awarded the Roland and Margaret Prove Southerland Aggie Leader Scholarship for the 2016-2017 academic year and being selected as the IEEE Industry Application Society Electric Safety Workshop 2017 student program chair.