Md Zahidul Islam Ph.D. 2025, NYU (began at UMass Lowell)
Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Resilient PMU networking and cyber-physical restoration of power distribution systems. Primary advisor Yuzhang Lin.
5 journal papers, 6 conference papers with the center
Selected paperDisaster-Resilient Cyber-Physical Distribution System Reconfiguration and Dynamic Networked Microgrid Formation Under Intermittent GenerationIEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 3459-3471, Mar. 2026
Google Scholar ORCID
106 citations6 h-index15 papersCrossref
Shamsun Nahar Edib Ph.D. 2024
Assistant Professor, Montana State University
Cross-domain resilient sensing and communication architectures for power grid monitoring. Primary advisor Yuzhang Lin. Best Ph.D. Student Award.
5 journal papers, 4 conference papers with the center
Selected paperSituation-Aware Load Restoration Considering Uncertainty and CorrelationIEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 2611-2629, Mar. 2024
Google Scholar ORCID
75 citations4 h-index9 papersCrossref
Where each graduate is now, verified in September 2026 against employer pages, LinkedIn, and Google Scholar. Citation figures refresh monthly with the rest of the site.
Md Zahidul Islam
Ph.D. 2025 New York University
Assistant Professor, School of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Began doctoral research at UMass Lowell with Yuzhang Lin and Vokkarane; completed the degree at NYU after his advisor moved
Smart grid monitoring, cyber-physical resilience, and AI for power systems; NEC Labs America and NREL collaborations
Profile Google Scholar LinkedIn
207 citations, 7 h-index, 7 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
Shamsun Nahar Edib
Ph.D. 2024
Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Montana State University
Primary advisor Yuzhang Lin; Best Ph.D. Student Award
Cyber-physical resilience, smart grid monitoring, and power system restoration
Profile Google Scholar LinkedIn
123 citations, 6 h-index, 4 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
TK
Travis Kessler
Ph.D. 2023
Research Engineer, AIMdyn, Inc.
Primary advisor Hunter Mack; Best Ph.D. Student Award
Applied machine learning for fuel property prediction, MLOps, and goal-directed agents in simulation
Profile LinkedIn
YW
Yue Wang
Ph.D. 2022
Software Engineer, KLA
Dissertation on dynamic traffic scheduling with spectral and spatial flexibility in SDM elastic optical networks; advisor Vokkarane
Elastic optical networks and space-division multiplexing
Google Scholar
25 citations, 3 h-index, 2 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
PA
Pegah Afsharlar
Ph.D. 2020
Data Scientist
Advisor Vokkarane; Best Paper Award, IEEE ANTS 2016; Top Paper Award, ONDM 2016
Delayed spectrum allocation and anycast advance reservation in elastic optical networks
YC
Yan Cui
Ph.D. 2019
Lecturer, Computer Science and Engineering, Santa Clara University
Advisor Vokkarane; taught at San José State University 2019 to 2022
Architectures and algorithms for ultra-high-speed networks; machine learning in networking
Profile Google Scholar LinkedIn
28 citations, 3 h-index, 1 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
DA
Dylan A. P. Davis
Ph.D. 2018
Senior Software Engineer, Hitachi Vantara
Advisor Vokkarane; Best Paper Award, ONDM 2015
Survivable multicast and manycast routing; path computation and resource reservation for research networks
Google Scholar LinkedIn
66 citations, 6 h-index, 1 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
AD
Arash Deylamsalehi
Ph.D. 2017
Quantitative Network Analyst, Google
Advisor Vokkarane; postdoctoral researcher in the group afterward
Energy cost and emissions-aware routing in optical networks; machine learning for network operation
Google Scholar LinkedIn
134 citations, 7 h-index, 4 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
JM
Jeremy M. Plante
Ph.D. 2017
Software engineer, Hitachi Vantara
Advisor Vokkarane; Best ECE Graduate Student Award 2015 to 2016; postdoctoral researcher in the group afterward
Sliding scheduled lightpaths and parallel circuit provisioning in ESnet's OSCARS
Google Scholar
243 citations, 9 h-index, 6 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
AE
Amir Ehsani Zonouz
Ph.D. 2015 University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
AI and IoT, Accenture; founder and former CEO, airXsys
Advisors Liudong Xing and Vokkarane, before the director moved to Lowell
Reliability of wireless sensor networks; deep learning and optimization
Google Scholar LinkedIn
401 citations, 9 h-index, 9 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
TS
Thilo Schöndienst
Ph.D. 2014
Patent examiner, European Patent Office
Advisor Vokkarane, 2011 to 2014
Renewable-energy-aware grooming and power-source-aware routing in optical networks
Google Scholar
101 citations, 7 h-index, 3 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
JZ
Juzi Zhao
Postdoctoral researcher 2015 to 2017
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, San José State University
Ph.D. George Washington University 2015; Chalmers University before Lowell
Optical networks, data center networks, and software-defined networking; NSF NeTS award as PI
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637 citations, 12 h-index, 14 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
AG
Arush Gadkar
Postdoctoral researcher at UMass Dartmouth
Registered Patent Agent, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP
Ph.D. George Washington University
Anycast advance reservation and multicast overlays in optical networks; now patent prosecution in software, hardware, and quantum computing
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141 citations, 8 h-index, 3 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
JT
Joan Triay
Postdoctoral researcher 2010 to 2011 at UMass Dartmouth
Specialist, DOCOMO Euro-Labs
Fulbright Scholar from Spain; advance reservation in WDM networks
Multi-access edge computing and network standardization
BB
Balagangadhar Bathula
Postdoctoral researcher 2007 to 2010 at UMass Dartmouth
Network Cloud and Infrastructure, AT&T
Impairment-aware optical networks
Optical networking and network infrastructure
Google Scholar
722 citations, 14 h-index, 19 i10-index on Google Scholar, Nov. 2026
