June 6, 2025
The funding will catalyze an ongoing collaboration between LIDS and DTU Wind and Energy Systems Department
Marija Ilic was awarded Otto Mønsted Foundation Visiting Professorship grant. Nominated by colleagues from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), including former LIDS visiting graduate student Aysegül Kahraman, the funding will catalyze ongoing collaboration with DTU’s Department of Wind and Energy Systems. As an appointed visiting professor Ilic’s role will align with the Foundation’s priority to enhance academic levels in Denmark. Distributing funds annually, the Foundation supports the education of teachers as well as business and engineering students. The fund also contributes to plans and undertakings within trade and industry that have potential benefit to Denmark´s commercial and corporate sectors.
Ilic will join the DTU faculty as a visiting professor in Fall 2025 and is expected to generate eight video recorded lectures based on her long-term teaching and research work. These will be made broadly available.
Ilic currently holds a position of a Joint Adjunct Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department and a Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) and at the Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS) at MIT.
Ilic’s work involves the toolbox of systems, optimization, and control, but is also combined with a deep knowledge of real-world aspects of power systems and a strong engagement with the power industry. Her contributions span from detailed dynamical models of the physical aspects of power systems to high-level issues involving coordination and economics. She is a strong advocate of an interactive multilayered approach that faithfully takes into account the multiple temporal and spatial scales that are present in the power network. The foundations of pursuing such an approach are based on novel energy dynamics modeling of multi-energy systems with many decision makers. This has led to introducing Dynamic Monitoring and Decision Systems (DyMonDS) cyber-physical platform as the next generation of SCADA systems for power networks that can take advantage of new capabilities in sensing and communications accompanied by powerful and realistic simulation tools. Ilic remains involved in teaching and mentoring a large group of students. She leads the LIDS Electric Energy Systems Group (EESG) and has recently undertaken the Coordinator role of the LIDS Energy & Infrastructure Systems: Modeling, Computing and Control (EIMC2) Research Group comprising several LIDS PIs working in this field. She was the co-founder of SmartGridz, Inc (formerly NETSS, Inc).
Ilic has authored hundreds of journal and conference publications, supervised close to 100 doctoral theses, and is the coauthor, with late Professor John Zaborszky, of a major text on "Dynamics and Control of Large Electric Power Systems.” Among several other awards, she is an IEEE Life Fellow, International Federation for Automatic Control (IFAC) Fellow, and an Elected Foreign Fellow of the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering (CSEE). Ilic served as an NSF Program Director from 1999-2001. She was awarded a prestigious IEEE PES Outstanding Teaching Award and was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the European Academy of Science, Informatics (Europea). Most recently she received the 2024 IEEE PES Prabha S. Kundur Power System Dynamics and Control Award.
Ilic received her doctorate in Systems Science and Mathematics from Washington University, in 1980. After teaching at Drexel University and Cornell, she moved to the University of Illinois (UIUC, 1984-89), where she rose to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. From 1989–2003, she was with MIT as a Senior Research Engineer. From 2002 to 2017, she was a tenured Professor at CMU, during which time she also held an honorary chair professorship at TU Delft, Netherlands. She is now a Professor Emerita from CMU.
The objective of the Otto Mønsted Foundation is to contribute to the development of Danish trade and industry. The Foundation distributes around 20 to 25 DKK million each year to support the education of business and engineering students; to educate teachers at business schools, DTU, and other technical colleges in Denmark; and to promote and develop plans and undertakings within trade and industry with the potential benefit to Denmark’s commercial and corporate sectors. Learn more.