IEEE PELS Milan M. Jovanović Award for Power Electronics Emerging Technology
About the Award
The IEEE PELS Milan M. Jovanović Award for Power Electronics Emerging Technology recognizes engineers and researchers who have made outstanding technical contributions to one or more emerging research topics in power electronics.
Milan M. Jovanović’s contributions to the field were exemplary, and this award is a lasting tribute to his groundbreaking work. For over 40 years, Dr. Jovanović innovated more efficient ways of supplying electrical energy to information technology devices with smaller sizes and weights, from smartphones to data centers of major Internet companies such as Google and Facebook. He led research teams in developing numerous power supply techniques that are used in hundreds of millions of devices made by Delta Electronics and other manufacturers, enabling further miniaturization of electronics equipment and resulting in enormous cumulative energy savings and electronic-material waste reduction. Our world is a greener place thanks to Milan’s work.
Award Prize:
- A plaque
- An honorarium of 1,500 USD
- Reimbursement of up to 1,000 USD towards the recipient’s necessary conference registration, travel, and accommodation costs incurred to attend the award ceremony
Submitting a Nominee
When submitting a nominee, you will be asked to log into your existing IEEE account (or register for a new one) to identify as a nominator. Subsequently, select the IEEE PELS Milan M. Jovanović Award for Power Electronics Emerging Technology and enter the required data and documents.
2024 Topic Areas
- Power electronics applications, including but not limited to robotics, space, electrified aviation, and other transportation sectors
- Power electronics circuits and systems, including but not limited to advanced converter architectures, EMI/EMC, 3D packaging
- Power electronics components, including but not limited to WBG devices, advanced magnetics, capacitors, and other passive components
The portal to submit a nomination is now closed.
Award Details
Recognizing Outstanding Achievements
2023 Honoree:
Leon Tolbert
For technical leadership and innovation in developing advanced gate drives for SiC devices
Leon M. Tolbert received the Bachelor’s, M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently a Chancellor’s Professor and the Min H. Kao Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Tennessee. He is a founding member of the NSF/DOE Engineering Research Center, CURENT. He is also a faculty member in the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research at UT. He is also an adjunct participant with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he previously worked from 1991 to 2020. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Tennessee. His research interests include the modeling, characterization, and application of wide bandgap semiconductors, electric utility applications of power electronics, microgrids, and electric vehicles. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and is currently the Academic Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Power Electronics Magazine and the Publications Chair for the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Dr. Tolbert is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2001 IEEE Industry Applications Society Outstanding Young Member Award, and Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award in 2020. He has had ten prize papers from the IEEE. He has received several awards for teaching and service at The University of Tennessee.
Eligibility Requirements & Criteria
Eligibility: Any active IEEE members are eligible for this award. There are no other restrictions as to affiliation, age, gender, IEEE member grade, or nationality.
Criteria: Judgment of the nominees is based on the following:
- Advancement of the technology
- Benefit to the Society
- Past relevant activities to the field and PELS TC 6
- Sustained impact on PELS TC 6 and the profession
- The quality of the nomination
- The quality of technical achievement and contribution to the field
Past Recipients
| Year | Recipient Name |
| 2022 | Jin Wang |
| 2021 | Grant Covic |
| 2020 | Brij Singh |
| 2019 | Chunting (Chris) Mi |
Questions?
Please send any questions to the PELS Awards Committee.