The IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Initiative provides multi-year scholarships and career experience opportunities to qualifying U.S. & Canadian electrical engineering undergraduate students. As long as the scholar continues to meet renewal standards, he or she will receive up to three years of funding interspersed with up to two years of valuable, hands-on career experience.   Since 2011, 549 scholarships have been distributed to 380 students within the USA and Canada.

2014 Applications Being Reviewed

The PES Scholarship Plus Regional Committees are currently reviewing the applications submitted. It is expected that the list of recipients will be announced in late September/Early October.

New Supporters

Burns & McDonnell, Dominion, and CRC Press have recently joined the distinguished list of financial supporters to the Scholarship Plus Initiative. Thank you for your support of the program.

Burns & McDonnell has joined the distinguished list of financial supporters to the Scholarship Plus Initiative. Jeff Camden (1st on left) and Michael Beehler (3rd on left) from Burns & McDonnell meet PES Scholars (John Hoffman, Travis Hinney, Aaron Rosenthall and Nicholas Coleman) at the 2014 PES General Meeting.

Top Organizations That Have a Hired a PES Scholar

Getting students to participate in career experience opportunities is fundamental to the success of the Initiative. The objective of the career experience program is to expand the number of available career experience opportunities for students. The following is a list of partnering companies and organizations that are providing or have provided internship experiences or hired a PES Scholar full time.

• Burns & McDonnell – 10 students (5 hired full time)*
• PECO – 8 students (3 hired full time)
• Black & Veatch – 7 students (5 hired full time)*
• Seattle City Light – 6 students (2 hired full time)
• Duke Energy – 5 students
• Eaton Corporation – 5 students (3 hired full time)
• S&C Electric Company – 5 students (1 hired full time)*
• Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories – 5 students (2 hired full time)*
• Xcel Energy – 5 students

* = Financial Supporter of PES Scholarship Plus Initiative

PES Scholar Profile – Turner Cotterman

Turner is a senior undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina, where he conducts research in Professor Kumar Venayagamoorthy’s Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory.

With his love of exploring and protecting the natural outdoors, Turner decided to pursue the promotion of sustainable and renewable energy technologies. Innovative energy systems will be key in reducing our impact upon the world’s ecological structure.

After interning with IEEE for the summer in Washington, D.C., Turner realized the importance of the intersection of public policy with engineering fundamentals in order to make informed decisions. He intends to use policy and legislation as a means to catalyze the development of cleaner energy technologies.

Turner’s current research efforts are focused on taking advantage of home energy management techniques in order to reduce household energy usage. Reducing homeowner energy usage, costs, and emissions can be achieved by incorporating independent energy generation and storage into a “nano-grid” infrastructure.

He is additionally investigating coupling smart energy devices with consumer incentives to shift peak energy usage periods of these household-level units.

Turner looks forward to his continued involvement with IEEE as well as to entering graduate school for energy policy.

A contribution today will be used to support students like Turner.  Make your gift online today to the IEEE Foundation or IEEE Canada Foundation.

IEEE Honors Ceremony

Wanda Reder, PES Scholarship Plus Co-Chair and vice president of power system solutions at S&C Electric Co. was presented with the IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award for “leadership in the IEEE Smart Grid program and in the continued growth of the IEEE Power & Energy Society, including the creation of its PES Scholarship Plus Initiative Fund”.​

In her acceptance speech, Wanda noted that she was contributing her award honorarium to the IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Initiative.   You can view the presentation and Wanda’s acceptance speech via ieee.tv. The presentation begins at 38:25 in the program.

Thank you Wanda for your leadership and for your generous donation to the program.

PES General Meeting – PES Scholars

We were very pleased to have 5 PES Scholars attend the IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting held at the Gaylord National Resort & Conference Center. Left to Right (Nicholas Coleman – Drexel University; Travis Kinney – Washington State University; John Hoffman – Washington State University; Kyle Mouratidis – The University of Calgary.   Not Pictured Aaron Rosenthal – New Mexico State University