New EE Chair
Wei-Jen Lee, a longtime faculty member in the Electrical Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been named Chair of the department. He had served as interim chair for the 2023-24 academic year.
“I am excited to have the opportunity to work with the faculty and staff of the Electrical Engineering Department. We share a common goal of making UTA an exceptional learning environment and advancing state-of-the-art technologies for a sustainable future,” Lee said.
Lee joined UTA in 1985 as a visiting assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 1992 and to full professor in 1998. He is the director of the Energy Systems Research Center.
He is an expert on renewable energy, smart grids, microgrids and power systems. He is president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Industry Application Society and chairs the IEEE Smart Cities/Education Committee.
Lee has served as the primary investigator (PI) or Co-PI of more than 110 funded research projects and published more than 220 journal papers and 310 conference proceedings. In addition, he has provided on-site training courses for power engineers in Panama, China, Taiwan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Singapore. He has refereed numerous technical papers for IEEE, IET, and other professional organizations.
Lee is a Fellow of IEEE, member of National Academy of Inventors, and registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas is one of just five faculty members from an American university invited to serve on the United Nations Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET): An Independent Advisory Council to the Secretary-General.
“I am extremely happy that Dr. Lee emerged as the preferred candidate by the search committee for the Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department. His experience as a faculty member, along with his work with outside organizations such as the United Nations, give him a unique point of view that will help him guide the department’s success going forward,” said Peter Crouch, Dean of the College of Engineering.
The Electrical Engineering Department offers undergraduate, Master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and an undergraduate degree in resource and energy engineering.
Faculty research interests include power and energy, cyberphysical and control learning systems, photonics, sensors and Internet of Things, and signal processing and machine learning.