Rate My Professor Geert Deconinck

Prof.dr.ir. Geert Deconinck is full professor in the Faculty of Engineering Science at KU Leuven, Belgium. He heads the ELECTA research group in the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT) since April 2012 and the KU Leuven division of EnergyVille since October 2016. He also leads the Subdivisie EnergyVille Electa - Deconinck, is a member of Divisie EnergyVille and KIES – KU Leuven Institute for Energy and Society, and serves as scientific leader for the research domain of algorithms, modelling, and optimisation at EnergyVille. Deconinck received his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering maxima cum laude in 1991 and Ph.D. in Engineering Science summa cum laude in 1996 from KU Leuven. His career trajectory includes an IWT grant from the Flemish Institute for the Promotion of Scientific-Technological Research in Industry (1995-1997), postdoctoral fellowship with the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (1997-2003), visiting professor at KU Leuven (1999-2003), associate professor (2003-2006), professor (2006-2010), and full professor since 2010.

Deconinck's research centers on robust distributed coordination and control in the context of smart electric distribution networks. His interests encompass smart grids, demand side management and flexibility, user-centric energy systems, smart metering, distributed control, data-driven modelling, machine learning, robust system design, sustainability, multi-energy systems, infrastructure interdependencies, and dependability modelling, with emphasis on simulation and experimental validation. He has authored or co-authored approximately 500 publications in international journals and conference proceedings, 7 books, and edited 4 others. On Google Scholar, his work has over 13,000 citations and an h-index of 52. Key publications include "Demand response flexibility and flexibility potential of residential smart appliances: Experiences from large pilot test in Belgium" (Applied Energy, 2015), "A scalable three-step approach for demand side management of plug-in hybrid vehicles" (IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2012), "Control of microgrids" (2007 IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting), "Reinforcement learning of heuristic EV fleet charging in a day-ahead electricity market" (IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2015), and "Battery energy management in a microgrid using batch reinforcement learning" (Energies, 2017). As principal investigator, he has managed projects exceeding 10 million euros over the past five years. He has supervised 44 PhD theses to completion and currently supervises 10 more. Deconinck is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (2013) and Senior Member of IEEE (2000). He co-chairs the IEEE SMC Technical Committee on Infrastructure Systems and Services, represents Belgium in CIGRÉ SC C6 on active distribution systems, serves as associate editor for IET Energy Systems Integrations and Springer Electrical Engineering Journal, and is on the editorial board of Energies. He was general chair of the 2nd IEEE International Forum on Smart Grids for Smart Cities (2018) and the 19th European Dependable Computing Conference (2024).