Rate My Professor Liz Ratnam

Associate Professor Liz Ratnam holds the position of Associate Professor and Deputy Postgraduate Director of Education in the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering at Monash University. She earned her BEng (Hons I) degree in Electrical Engineering in 2006 and her PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2016, both from the University of Newcastle, Australia. From 2001 to 2012, she occupied various professional roles at Ausgrid, operator of one of Australia's largest electricity distribution networks. Post-PhD, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Center for Energy Research at the University of California San Diego and at the California Institute for Energy and Environment at the University of California Berkeley. Previously at the Australian National University, she served as Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering and recipient of the Future Engineering Research Leader Fellowship. She is recognized as a Fellow of Engineers Australia (FIEAust), Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng), and Senior Member of the IEEE.

Liz Ratnam leads a research group in Power Systems and Optimization, with an overarching focus on accelerating the transition to net-zero power grids. Her work develops novel control, estimation, and optimization frameworks to enable robust grid operations, transactive energy markets, and improved security and resilience of cyber-physical power systems. Key research areas encompass the integration of renewable energy sources, solar photovoltaics, battery storage, electric vehicles, smart grid design, and coordinated control in unbalanced distribution grids. Her contributions align with UN Sustainable Development Goals 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and 13 (Climate Action). With 48 research outputs including 19 journal articles and 27 conference papers, notable publications include 'Distributed Coordination of Electric Vehicles in Unbalanced Distribution Grids: Enhancing Resilience to Peer-to-Peer Communication Failures' (2025, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications), 'Electric Grid Topology and Admittance Estimation: Quantifying Phasor-based Measurement Requirements' (2025, American Control Conference), and 'A Distributed Coordination Approach for the Charge and Discharge of Electric Vehicles in an Unbalanced Distribution Grid' (2024, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics). Her work has garnered approximately 1,991 citations on Google Scholar. She is actively involved in projects such as Building Australia's Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Infrastructure and accepts PhD students.