Biography
Short bio:
Rahul Gupta earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in 2018 and 2023, respectively. His doctoral research earned him the EPFL PhD Thesis Distinction in Electrical Engineering in 2023. Following his Ph.D., he served as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, from Oct. 2023 to Dec. 2024, supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Since January 2025, Dr. Gupta has been an Assistant Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Washington State University (WSU). His research focuses on the operation and planning of active distribution networks addressing various kinds of uncertainties, measurement and model-less control schemes, power system parameter estimation and synthetic network generation.
Personal bio:
I was born and raised in a remote village in the north-central-eastern part of India called Hariharganj in Jharkhand state. A fun fact about my birthplace: it’s located just 50 kilometers from Bodh Gaya, the sacred site where Buddha attained enlightenment! This connection to Buddha runs deeper for me, as my name, Rahul, happens to be the name of Buddha’s son. So, you could say I’ve carried a little piece of Buddhist heritage with me since birth. I attended a government school in Hariharganj until 10th grade, after which I moved to a bigger city called Ranchi, where I completed my higher secondary education at St. Xavier’s College.
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During 2010-2014, I pursued my undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela. My time there was transformative—I fell in love with electrical engg., thanks to an inspiring lectures on Electric Machines and Power Electronics. Eager to dive deeper, my next stop was ** NUS Singapore** (2015-2016), where I gained valuable research experience in power electronics and microelectronics. These years motivated to purse the path of academic research and pursue a higher degree.
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For my master’s, I moved to Switzerland, enrolling in an MSc in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Smart Grid Technologies at the renowned École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Those two years (2016-2018) in Switzerland were nothing short of life-changing. The Swiss education system captivated me, particularly the balance of theory and practice in courses like Smart Grid Technologies (taught by Prof. Mario Paolone and Prof. Jean-Yves Le Boudec) and Industrial Electronics (led by Prof. Drazen Dujic). These experiences profoundly influenced not just my knowledge, but also my teaching philosophy.
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My growing fascination with Smart Grids naturally led me to pursue a Ph.D. under the mentorship of Prof. Mario Paolone at EPFL and co-advisor Prof. Fabrizio Sossan, within the Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory (DESL). During my PhD (2018-2022), I developed algorithms for control of distributed energy resources in distribution grids and I had the amazing opportunity to experiment with real distribution systems at the DESL lab and also with the collbaoration of local utility companies. After my PhD, I moved to Atlanta for postdoc under the guidance of Prof. Daniel Molzahn at Georgia Tech, where I expanded my research in developing fairness-aware scheme for distribution systems and also synthetic network generation charaterisitic to the networks in the USA.
Hobbies
Outside the work, I am fond of outdoor activities - hiking, cycling, skiiing. Some of the pictures below: