Marcelo Simoes


Marcelo Godoy Simões is a Brazilian-American engineer at the Colorado School of Mines, in Golden, Colorado. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for application of artificial intelligence in control of power electronics systems.

Early life and career

Simoes was born in São Paulo in 1963, to José L.G. Simões and Cecília A.B.G. Simões, with a sister, Maysa A.G. Simões. When he was 11 years old, he had a strong motivation and decided to become an electrical engineer after his cousin, Hélio Adauto de Paula, showed him working vacuum tube radios, transistorized audio amplifiers, and also took Simoes to visit his work as an electrical machine designer in Equacional, a motor manufacturing company in the city of São Paulo.
Simoes was enrolled in an evening catholic high school from 1978 to 1980, "Liceu Coração de Jesus", where he learned electronics as part of a technician training. At that time, there was a large job market for electronic technicians in Brazil, but he wanted to study further, in order to be an engineer. Therefore, in 1980, Simoes took the entrance exams for the University of São Paulo and was admitted as a student in "Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo. He was a student at EPUSP from 1981 to 1985. In 1982 he was admitted to the Electrical Engineering department of EPUSP and also started an internship at FTDE-Fundação para o Desenvolvimento Tecnológico da Engenharia. From 1984 to 1985, he focused his expertise in telecommunications, antennas, high frequency, analog, and digital circuits design. His Senior Design in 1985 was a modem with analog and circuit implemented for interfacing an 8085 microprocessor, operating on regular telephone connection. Such a system was made before the age of computers connected on telephone lines via modems, that happened several years later. During his four years internship for FDTE, he was learning with senior engineers how to design DC-DC converters and off-line switching mode power supplies, using Phillips manuals for TV flyback circuits and National Instruments handbooks, those power converters were built and implemented in railroad automation, as well as in the São Paulo Metro subway system. In 1985, Simoes graduated from EPUSP and took a job as an engineer for a few years with FDTE. He got inspired by several faculty from EPUSP, for example, Prof. who taught him all modern computer-based electrical and electronics circuits analysis, José Roberto Cardoso who taught electrical machines and energy conversion, Simoes also learned a lot from Prof. Edson Benedicto Ramos Feris and Prof. Guido Stolfi Benedito Féris Benedito Féris techniques for analog high-frequency circuit designer. During the Senior year Simoes took a class with as well as Prof. Waldir Pó about introduction to Power Electronics, where the principles of utilizing thyristors, diodes, and transitors, to control electrical circuits for energy conversion was a transformation in how Simoes wanted to further pursue his career, making a strong motivation to learn and understand power electronics for controlling machines, ac-dc, dc-ac, and dc-dc power conversion.
From 1986 to 1989, Simoes worked for FDTE, at the same time leading technical research with three other partners who together started a company, Antares Eletrônica. Simões completed his M.Sc. degree under the advice of professor Moacyr Martucci Jr. During his Master degree, Simoes started to heavily use computer-based design, initially with MicroCap for PC's, applying Pascal and C languages with compilers made for PC's, then also adopting Matlab in 1988 when it became available for the IBM PC 286 with a co-processor 287. Simões studied most of papers in modeling and simulation of dc/dc converters published by R. D. Middlebrook and Slobodan Ćuk. Simões joined EPUSP in 1989 as an instructor in the newly formed Mechatronics group inside the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and finished his Master's degree in 1990. After meeting Prof.Ivo Barbi in 1989, during an event organized at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, the II SEP–Seminário de Eletrônica de Potência, Prof.Barbi motivated Simoes to study Prof.Bimal Kumar Bose's papers. Simoes then realized that power electronics was a bigger picture. Simoes invited Prof. B.K.Bose to come to Brazil in 1990 to give a 3-day mini-course, and about 40 people attended this mini-course, from local schools in São Paulo, senior engineers from industry, several faculty members from other schools and other states, the meeting was a success, and Simões became very enthusiastic about joining the research group of Prof. Bose.
In August 1991, Simoes was admitted as a Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, supported by a Brazilian scholarship from CNPq, with a leave of absence from EPUSP. He was a graduate student in the Electrical Engineering Department of UTK, working under the advice of Prof.Bimal K.Bose, from 1991 to 1995. Simoes conducted research at the facilities of EPRI/PEAC where Prof.Bimal K.Bose had his research program. Simoes studied all graduate courses available in the UTK graduate program in power electronics, power systems, control systems, and artificial intelligence, mainly learning fuzzy logic and neural networks, in order to apply into his Ph.D. dissertation. After obtaining his Ph.D. in 1995, Simões returned to Brazil to teach at the Mechatronics Department of University of São Paulo. Simoes was promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor after he obtained his Livre-Docência Diploma in 1998. Simoes decided to immigrate and continue his career in the USA. He moved to Lakewood, Colorado, in order to accept a faculty position with the Colorado School of Mines in April 2000.

Academic life and career

Simões received a B.Sc. degree from University of São Paulo, Brazil, an M.Sc. degree from University of São Paulo, Brazil, and a Ph.D. degree from The University of Tennessee, USA in 1985, 1990 and 1995 respectively. He received his D. Sc. degree from the University of São Paulo in 1998. Dr. Simões was a Fulbright Fellow for AY 2014-15, in the Aalborg University, Institute of Energy Technology. He joined Colorado School of Mines in 2000. During the past several years he applied several intelligent based control for advancing high power electronics applications for distributed energy systems and smart-grid technology. He is a recipient of the NSF - Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2002, one of the most prestigious award for new faculty members supporting activities of young teacher-scholars. He served as the director of the Center for Advanced Control of Energy and Power Systems – ACEPS and the Colorado Electric Power Research Consortium – CEPRC at the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Simões has been teaching and conducting research of fuzzy logic, neural networks, bayesian networks, and in multi-agent systems for power electronics, drives and machines control, building an academic framework for advancing the integration of users with the distribution grid in applications defined as "smart-grid technology."
Dr. Simões work is internationally recognized, with highly cited papers and books. He is conducting cooperation with several institutions in several countries, serving as advisor for students and research programs. He was hired as a visiting professor with UTBM – University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard and ENS - l'École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, in France, supervised an international power quality laboratory in Brazil at São Paulo State University – UNESP, and is currently serving as technical advisor for Universidad APEC in the República Dominicana. He published several books in English, application of induction generators for renewable energy systems, integration of alternative sources of energy, modeling power electronics and energy systems, instrumentation for smart-grid, power electronics for integration of renewable energy systems with Springer-Verlag, and published the only book available in Portuguese language about fuzzy logic modeling and control.
Dr. Simões was senior member between 1998 and 2016, and he has been IEEE Fellow since 2016 and has served IEEE in various capacities. He was IEEE PELS Educational Chairman, IEEE PELS Intersociety Liaison and Associate-Editor for Energy Conversion, as well as Editor for Intelligent Systems of IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, and Associate-Editor for Power Electronics in Drives of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He was Transactions Paper Review Chair for IAS/IACC and Vice-Chair of IEEE IAS/MSDAD. Dr. Simões organized several conferences and technical sessions for IEEE for the past few years, was the Program Chair for IEEE PESC 2005, active in the Steering and Organization Committee of the IEEE International Future Energy Challenge and also the organizer of the 1st PEEW’05 - Power Electronics Education Workshop. He organized the IEEE GreenTech 2017 in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Simões coordinated PELS Chapter activities in Denver, he is the founder of IEEE Denver Chapter of the Power Electronics Society as well as the founder of the IEEE IES Denver Chapter, where he is currently serving as Chapter Chair. He was the Chair for the IEEE IES Smart-Grid Committee. He has recently been elected as IEEE IES AdCom Member-at-Large for a three-year term Jan//2019 to Dec//2021 and is a member of IES Awards & Honors Committee, chaired by Prof. John Hung, 2018-2019.

Work

Simões is the author of ten books in power electronics, renewable energy, microgrids and smartgrids.
  1. F. A. Farret, M. Godoy Simões, D. I. Brandão, Electronic Instrumentation for Distributed Generation and Power Processes, CRC Press.
  2. F.A. Farret, M. Godoy Simões, Integration of Renewable Sources of Energy, 2nd Edition, John Wiley and Sons.
  3. M. Godoy Simões, F. A. Farret; Modeling Power Electronics and Interfacing Energy Conversion Systems, IEEE/Wiley.
  4. M.G. Simões, F. A. Farret, Modeling and Analysis with Induction Generators – 3rd Edition, Taylor and Francis / CRC Press, December 2014.
  5. Sudipta Chakraborty, M. Godoy Simões and William Kramer, Power Electronics for Renewable and Distributed Energy Systems: A Sourcebook of Topologies, Control and Integration, Springer-Verlag.,
  6. M. Godoy Simões, F. A. Farret, Alternative Energy Systems: Design and Analysis with Induction Generators – 2nd Edition, CRC Press,.
  7. F.A. Farret, M. Godoy Simões, Integration of Alternative Sources of Energy, John Wiley and Sons..
  8. M. Godoy Simões, F. A. Farret, Renewable Energy Systems: Design and Analysis with Induction Generators,, CRC Press..
  9. M. Godoy Simões, F. A. Farret, Solutions Manual - Renewable Energy Systems, CRC Press..
  10. M. Godoy Simões and I.S. Shaw, Controle e Modelagem Fuzzy Publisher: Edgard Blucher., 1st Edition: 1999, 2nd Edition: 2007.

    Selected publications

Here is a list of his selected publications, for full list please refer to:
Awards received by Dr. Simões include, among many others: