Mini S. Thomas is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India (JMI), with 29 years of teaching and research experience in the field of power systems. She was the head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and currently is the director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She graduated from the University of Kerala, India and obtained her M.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, both with Gold Medals. She also holds a Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi. Dr. Thomas conceived, designed, and implemented the first-of-their-kind supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and substation automation (SA) laboratories and has done extensive research work in SCADA systems, substation and distribution automation, and smart grids. She has published more than 100 research papers in international journals and conferences of repute, and is the coordinator of the special assistance program (SAP) on power system automation from the University Grants Commission, Government of India.
John D. McDonald, P.E., is director of Technical Strategy and Policy Development for GE Energy Management - Digital Energy, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, with 40 years of experience in the electric utility industry. He joined GE Energy's Transmission and Distribution (now Digital Energy) business in 2008 as general manager of marketing, and accepted his current role in 2010. McDonald is a sought-after industry leader, technical expert, educator, and speaker. In his 28 years of working group and subcommittee leadership with the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Substations Committee, he led seven working groups and task forces that published standards and tutorials in the areas of SCADA and master/remote terminal unit (RTU) and RTU/IED communications protocols. He is a fellow of IEEE and past president of the IEEE PES. He teaches smart grid courses for GE and the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA, and substation automation, SCADA, and communications courses for various IEEE PES local chapters. He has published 80 papers and articles, co-authored four books, and holds a BSEE and MSEE from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, and an MBA from the University of California-Berkeley, USA. He received the 2009 Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer Award from Purdue University.
