Rate My Professor Colin Coates

Dr. Colin Coates is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering (Electrical and Computer Engineering) at the University of Newcastle, Australia, within the College of Engineering, Science and Environment. He holds a PhD and a combined Bachelor of Mathematics and Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) from the University of Wollongong. Coates began his career in industry as a Cadet Electrical Engineer from 1987 to 1991 and Electrical Development Engineer from 1992 to 1994 at BHP Sheet and Coil Products Division in Port Kembla, Australia. He later worked as a Design Engineer at Zener Electrical (Newcastle) Pty Ltd from 1997 to 1999. Joining the University of Newcastle, he served as B.E. (Electrical) Program Convenor from 2004 to 2009 and has been Head of Discipline for Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering since 2010.

His research specializations include electric drives, low voltage distributed generation, and small scale wind turbines, focusing on electrical energy transmission, networks and systems (60%) and industrial electronics (40%). Coates teaches undergraduate courses such as 2nd year introductory electronics, 3rd year electronics, 4th year electronics design, advanced drives and power electronics, and coordinates final year projects, including offshore programs in Singapore. He supervises honours projects and postgraduate research. Key publications encompass 'State Feedback Control for Interleaved Boost Converter with Gain Scheduling' (Mo, Mirzaeva, Coates, 2025, IEEE ETFG), 'Comparison of State Feedback Control and PI Control for an Interleaved Buck Converter' (Mo, Mirzaeva, Coates, 2024, AUPEC), 'State feedback with observers for DC-DC converters' (Mo, Mirzaeva, Coates, 2023, IEEE ETFG), 'A Decentralized Reliability-Enhanced Power Sharing Strategy for PV-Based Microgrids' (Jiang et al., Coates, 2021, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics), 'A High-Performance Drive for the Rotary Coal Breaker Application' (Mirzaeva, Coates, 2009, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications), and 'Renewable Energy Source Emulator' (Choon, Coates, Viswanath, 2009, book chapter). These contributions advance power electronics, renewable integration, and microgrid technologies.