Professor Emeritus Bruce Wollenberg receives 2025 IEEE Herman Halperin Award
Professor Emeritus Bruce Wollenberg is the recipient of the 2025 IEEE Herman Halperin Electric Transmission and Distribution Award. The award recognizes Wollenberg for his “contributions to operations, computing, and control of power systems.”
The IEEE Technical Field Awards are a recognition for contributions or leadership in specific fields of interest of IEEE. Recipients are selected by the Technical Field Awards Council of the organization’s Awards Board. Roughly 30 Technical Field Awards are awarded each year across the more than 400,000 strong membership of the IEEE.
Wollenberg’s foundational contributions to the operation, analysis, monitoring, and control of power systems are characterized by how closely connected they are to engineering practice. His industry experience has influenced the types of problems he has addressed, and has informed the proposed solutions. The impact of his work is apparent in the number and nature of articles he has authored and co-authored in the Proceedings of the IEEE and the recognition they have received through citations and/or the establishment of new lines of inquiry. Some of the key highlights of his work include: a paper on managing transmission in a deregulated environment that includes an overview of methods from a technical point of view and specific instances of these methods as pursued around the world; another contribution focuses on on-line power system security analysis which tackles topics such as contingency analysis, optimization of preventive and corrective actions, and dynamic security analysis; a third key contribution to the Proceedings discusses at length alarm processing in the context of power system operators and includes several topics related to computing and human-computer interaction that are particularly relevant today.
As far back as 1987 Wollenberg authored an article on artificial intelligence in power-systems operations for the Proceedings in which he commented on the difference between so-called knowledge-based expert systems (a technology related to artificial intelligence) and conventional numerical algorithms within the context of practical considerations pertinent to human operators and control centers. He has made several other contributions to the general area of knowledge-based expert systems including tackling applications and algorithms such as unit commitment, the role of expert systems in contending with emergencies, the creation and evaluation of switching sequences, and fault diagnosis.
Wollenberg’s contributions address topics that are of particular interest and lasting relevance to power engineers and others in the community of practice. His work has been at the forefront of technical developments, and in many instances their relevance has persisted decades after he first addressed the topics. Some of these contributions include: mechanism design for power markets in the context of deregulation of power systems; a co-authored seminal publication on the concept of the smart grid in the early days of the idea; and his deliberations on the notion of reliability in the context of blackouts. The practical nature of Wollenberg’s contributions stem from his industry experience, but the fact that he has also successfully integrated them with the latest solutions in control theory, optimization, and computing indicate his effortless bridging of the gap between academia and industry.
Wollenberg’s academic contributions are equally significant. He authored the book, “Power Generation, Operation and Control,” (published by John Wiley & Sons, New York 1984, initially co-authored with A. J. Wood, with later editions seeing the addition of G. B. Sheble as another co-author). It has remained the authoritative reference on power-systems operations and control used by those in academia and industry. Wollenberg has advised a long list of graduate students who have gone on to achieve remarkable professional success in the power engineering field. Two among them might be the most recognizable names: Mark Lauby and Noel Schulz. Lauby is senior vice president and chief engineer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and a member of the NAE. Schulz is a professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University.
Wollenberg is the recipient of several awards and honors that recognize his research and teaching contributions. In 2008 he was made IEEE Life Fellow, in 2002 he received the IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award, in 2000 he was recognized with the IEEE Third Millennium Award, and was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 1988. He was also the recipient of the University’s Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education Award in 2007. In 1987 he received the Control Data Corporation Technical Excellence Award (he was an employee of the company from 1984 to 1989). In 2005, Wollenberg was made a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Professor Emeritus Bruce Wollenberg earned his doctoral degree in systems engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974 and after spending time as an engineer in industry and faculty in academia, he joined the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 1989 as a professor.