Electrical Insulation Research Center

Antigoni Konstantinou Receives 2023-2024 GE Fellowship for Excellence

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Ph.D. Student Antigoni Konstantinou
IMS Materials Science Program Ph.D. candidate Antigoni Konstantinou

The College of Engineering recently announced the recipients of its General Electric Fellowship for Excellence.  The award was established to recognize the excellence of current graduate students and to facilitate their completion of the Ph.D. program.  Fellows are selected for their outstanding track records in research and professional service in the areas of advanced materials, manufacturing, and energy.  Antigoni Konstantinou, an Institute of Materials Science (IMS) Materials Science Program Ph.D. student, has been named a recipient of this honor.

Ms. Konstantinou has exhibited academic excellence in both research and leadership.  She currently serves as president of the 2023-2024 e-board for the John Lof Leadership Academy (JLLA). From this position, she empowers UConn’s graduate student community by nurturing essential leadership skills, especially for women in STEM. She is also a former Secretary of the UConn Chapter of the Materials Research Society (MRS).

Since joining the IMS Materials Science Ph.D. program in Spring 2021, Antigoni has been working with advisor Prof. Yang Cao and his Electrical Insulation Research Center (EIRC) utilizing materials preparation and electrical engineering techniques to develop nanostructured insulation materials to protect high-voltage electric motors from high electric fields. This research bridges Materials Science with Electrical Engineering.

IMS and the EIRC congratulate Antigoni on this well-deserved honor.

EIRC Lab Mates Like Family

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Kerry Lynn Davis-AmendolaKerry Lynn Davis-Amendola beautifully shares her experience as a current Ph.D. student in the Electrical Insulation Research Center (EIRC) paying special attention to the importance of her lab mates and the camaraderie that awaited her when she joined the lab.  The inspiring article, The Best Part of a PhD that No One Is Talking About, appears in the “Young Professionals” section of the July/August 2023 edition of the journal IEEE.

IMS and Electrical Insulation Research Center Welcomes Wesley Zhong

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Wesley Zhong
EIRC Lab Manager, Wesley Zhong

Wesley Zhong has joined the Institute of Materials Science (UConn IMS) as the new lab manager for the Electrical Insulation Research Center (EIRC).  His specialties include high voltage safety, electrial insulation testing, partial discharge detection, experiment build and design, extreme environment testing, power electronics testing, technical writing, Lean Six Sigma and equipment maintenance and calibration.

Wesley earned his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology from Purdue University where he served as an undergraduate teaching assistant.  Additionally, he served as He worked as a dielectrics specialist at GE Global Research for the past five years designing, building, and running HV dielectric experiments involving aviation, power electronics, and motor/generators design.

Under the direction of Dr. Yang Cao, the Electrical Insulation Research Center has extensive facilities for characterizing the electrical properties of insulating materials used in electrical apparatus including distribution and transmission networks, rotating machinery component, electrostatic/electro-responsive devices, capacitive energy storage, and more.

Please join us in welcoming Wesley to UConn and IMS!

Yang Cao in Collaboration on Project Funded by ARPA-E OPEN 2021

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Yang Cao
Dr. Yang Cao

On February 14, 2022, ARPA-E announced $175 million for 68 OPEN 2021 research and development projects aimed at developing disruptive technologies to strengthen the nation’s advanced energy enterprise. These high-impact, high-risk technologies support novel approaches to clean energy challenges.

Associate Professor and Electrical Insulation Resource Center (EIRC) Director Yang Cao and fellow researchers from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) will combine the functionality benefits of power electronics with the power density benefits of high-voltage cables to create a cohesive, all-in-one structure to replace bulky, inflexible power substations in today’s electrical grid. This “substation within a cable” design uses a cascade of coaxial power conversion cells to gradually step-down voltage to levels required by the loads. Virginia Tech’s module can achieve high power density and a form factor that enables seamless integration with the cable by mimicking a coaxial geometry design. This could eliminate the need for large and expensive power substations and enable simple integration of renewable energy sources, an electric vehicle fast-charging infrastructure, energy storage, and efficient direct current distribution lines.

The research project, Substation in a Cable for Adaptable, Low-cost Electrical Distribution (SCALED) has received $2,953,389 in funding support through the ARPA-E OPEN 2021 initiative.