Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University College Station, 2023
  • M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Utah, 2020
  • B.Eng., Electronic Engineering, University of Nigeria, 2015
Academic Appointments
  • Graduate Teaching Assistant, Electric Energy Conversion, Texas A&M University, 2022
  • Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Engineer Electronics II, The University of Utah, 2018
  • Teaching Assistant, Electrical and Computer Engineering Design, The University of Utah, 2018
  • Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Electric Circuits (Circuits & Systems II), The University of Utah, 2017
  • Teaching Assistant, Electrical Forensics and Failure Analysis, The University of Utah, 2017
  • Short Courses Delivered
  • Developed and instructed in a four-day tutorial for GridSecCon on “Cyber Physical Grid Training: Cyber-Physical Electric Grid Analysis of Threats, Impact and Defense,” Oct 2021 with about 190 attendees
  • Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station Smart Grid Center public webinar on “Cyber-Physical Resilient Energy Systems: A Secure Foundation for Next-Generation Energy Management,” Jan. 14, 2021, with 75 attendees.
  • Developed and instructed in a four-day virtual short course on “Cyber, Physical, and Cyber-Physical Electric Grid Analysis of Threats, Impact, and Defense,” Sept/Oct 2020 with about 40 attendees.
  • Developed and instructed in a three-day short course on “Cyber, Physical, and Cyber-Physical Electric Grid Analysis of Threats, Impact, and Defense,” Feb. 18-20, 2020.
Professional Honors
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation + PSERC IAB Travel Award: Transformation School held in Tempe, AZ (July 2022)
  • Top 10% on the Kaggle Leaderboard Machine Learning Competition (https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/uofu-ml-fall-2018/leaderboard)
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Volunteer award: Attended, presented work, and competed the 3rd IEEE Power and Energy Society Student (2018) in Brazil.
  • EducationUSA Opportunity Fund Award by the Consulate General of the United States of America (2016):
  • Young African Leaders Initiative through the Bureau of International Information Programs U.S. Department of States on “Focus on: Understanding the Rights of Women and Girls” (Certificate Awarded, 2016).
  • Nneji Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ezechukwu Memorial, and The University of Nigeria, Prizes to the Best Graduating Student in Electronic Engineering (2016)
  • Chevron/NNPC Agbami Medical and Engineering Professional Scholarship Award (2011/2012-2015)
Professional Affiliations
  • Member, IEEE (Women in Engineering, Power and Energy Society, Young Professionals)
  • Member, Energy and Power Group (EPG) at Texas A&M University
  • Member, Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC)
  • Member, The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
  • Technical Program Committee for:
  • North American Power Symposium (NAPS 2021) Volunteer committee
  • Texas Power and Energy Conference 2021, 2022, 2023
  • Volunteering and Mentorship Activities
  • Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) (April 2016 - March 2017):
  • · Reached into communities, creating spaces and clusters to educate and help less privileged children in these communities.
  • · Sensitization and information awareness (Health, Child Abuse and Child Protection) of less-educated adults in underprivileged communities.
  • · My team helped raise funds through VSO to help about 30 children get back to school on the “Back to School Project”
  • Mentor for Women in STEM, Professional Women Engineers, People in STEM.
  • · Teaching courses in STEM
  • · Research mentor for women in STEM
  • · Research mentor for people in STEM

Dr. Umunnakwe is trained in electrical and computer engineering with expertise in enhancing the resilience and security of the power grid, including reducing the risk of cyber and physical threats. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, where she researched and developed models and tools for reducing risk and applying next-generation energy management techniques to the grid. Motivated by effective deployable solutions for real-world problems, she uses her skills in computer science including machine learning, deep learning, image analysis, and reinforcement learning to develop data-driven and spatio-temporal models that improve power system techniques. She has worked on threats of adversary intrusion and false data injection attacks on the grid, as well as the development of digital twin models for power system communication networks to facilitate risk studies. She has expertise in extreme threats of wildfires, where her models enable utilities and other critical infrastructure to quantify their wildfire risks and increase grid resilience. She has also developed software tools that integrate computer vision to enable critical infrastructure to respond resiliently to wildfires while mitigating threats accurately in real-time.

Dr. Umunnakwe has industry experience in energy and natural resources creating techniques for clients that improve the sustainability and load shedding schemes for power plants, as well as experience in optimizing power systems operations and other electrical engineering processes. Her experience spans the following fields and sub-fields:

Electrical engineering: power system economics, security and optimization, electrical fault forensics.

Computer Science: machine learning, deep learning (convolutional, artificial, graph, recurrent neural networks) deep reinforcement learning, data science, network security, pattern recognition, stochastic processes, image analysis, geospatial information systems (ArcGIS), big datasets.

Programming Languages: Python (TensorFlow, Keras, PyTorch, etc.), C++, MATLAB, GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling Language).