Keynote speakers

We are very excited to annouce our keynote speakers as follows:

Chris Coonick is National Grid’s UK/US Innovation Management Office Director. As part of this role Chris is responsible for driving the delivery of the Group Innovation Strategy, embedding a culture of innovation across the organisation and telling the story of how innovation delivers impact for National Grid and their customers. Chris is a well-respected industry specialist with over 12 years’ experience in delivering and managing £multi-million research & innovation programmes and projects that pave the way to net zero. An active leader in the UK energy sector, Chris has been involved in national and international committees, developing future standards for an evolving technical landscape whilst heading up BRE’s National Solar Centre. Prior to joining the team at National Grid, Chris managed Ofgem’s £450m Strategic Innovation Fund programme and lead a multi-disciplinary team for UKRI, the UK Government’s Research and Innovation agency

Chris Coonick, UK/US Innovation Management Office Director, National Grid

Mini Nambiar, Innovation Project Manager, SSEN Transmission

After graduating in Electrical and Electronics engineering from India, Mini Nambiar worked globally in a variety of industries ranging from consumer electronics, electronic manufacturing services, oil and gas, defence sector and now in electricity transmission. Mini started her career in Taiwan as Hardware Design Engineer and moved through various engineering roles into project management. Mini is passionate about innovation and supports SSE to deliver technical innovations to meet the Network for Net Zero business plan

Dan Micu, Professor at Technical University of Cluj-Napoca

Since 1998, Dan Micu has been with the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, where he is currently Full Professor and Chair of Electrotechnics and Measurements Department. He is also the Director of the Energy Transition Research Center and President of the Senate Research Committee. Between 2006 - 2010 he was Scientific Expert at the Managerial Agency of Scientific Research at Romanian Ministry of Research and Innovation and starting from 2020, he has been selected as an Expert at the National Council for Scientific Research at the same Ministry. He lectured at more than 50 Universities all over the world and he was a Fulbright Senior Fellow at University of Florida in 2017 and 2022. Since 2019 he is a Part-time Professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, China. He has authored and co-authored more than 300 scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals and presented at international conferences. He was involved in more than 30 research grants obtained by national and international competitions (project manager at 8 international and 7 national projects) and more than 20 research projects for industry. Research interests: energy analytics numerical tools; energy efficiency in buildings & industry; numerical methods; electromagnetic compatibility; electromagnetic field analysis, synthesis and optimization

Liana Cipcigan, Professor at Cardiff Unversity

Liana M. Cipcigan (Member, IEEE) is currently a Professor with the School of Engineering, Cardiff University, Cardiff, U.K., where she has been leading sustainable transport cross-cutting theme. She is also the Director of the Electric Vehicle Centre of Excellence and the Leader of the Transport Futures Research Network. She was at the forefront of the shift to electrified transport for over a decade being recognized nationally and internationally as an expert in electric vehicles (EVs) and smart grids leading the €1M EPSRC Network+ “Decarbonising Transport through Electrification (DTE), a whole system approach.” She has collaborated widely with industry, more recently during her secondment at National Grid under the Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellowship, working in the Energy Insights Department responsible for the future energy scenarios. She has held as a PI and a Co-I grants in the excess of €6.5M from EPSRC, the Royal Academy of Engineering, Innovate UK, U.K. Energy Research Center (UKERC), the Welsh European Funding Office, EU FP7/H2020, and industry