Rate My Professor Leon Tolbert

Leon M. Tolbert is the Min H. Kao Professor and Chancellor's Professor in Electrical Engineering in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, specializing in power electronics within Engineering. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with highest honors in 1989, M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1991, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1999, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology. From 1991 to 1999, he worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, first in the Engineering Division on electrical distribution and power quality projects, then as a Research Engineer in the Power Electronics and Electric Machinery Research Center, developing thermal and efficiency models for hybrid electric vehicles, multilevel inverter PWM methods, and electric machine efficiency testing methods. In 1999, Tolbert joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advancing to full professor, serving as Department Head from 2013 to 2018, and later as interim department head. He is a founding member and Testbed Thrust Leader of CURENT, the NSF/DOE Engineering Research Center, a faculty member in the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, and an adjunct participant at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Power Electronics and Electric Machinery Research Center.

Tolbert's research focuses on power electronics, including application of wide bandgap power devices (SiC and GaN), multilevel converters, electric vehicle power electronics, motor drives, interfaces with renewable and distributed energy resources, reactive power compensation, active filters, and high-efficiency electric power conversion for data centers and microgrids. He has contributed book chapters on 'Multilevel Power Converters' to the Power Electronics Handbook (2nd ed., 2007; 3rd ed., 2011; 4th ed., 2018). Key publications include 'Multilevel Converters for Large Electric Drives' (IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 1999), 'Direct Torque Control of Induction Machines Using Space Vector Modulation' (IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 1992, second prize paper), and recent works such as 'Short Circuit Characterization and Protection of 10 kV SiC MOSFET' (IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 2019). His achievements include the NSF CAREER Award, IEEE Industry Applications Society Outstanding Young Member Award (2001), IEEE Power Electronics Society Milan M. Jovanović Award for Power Electronics Emerging Technology (2023), fifteen IEEE prize paper awards, Chancellor's Citation for Research and Creative Achievement (2016), Charles Ferris Faculty Award (2019), and IEEE Fellowship. A Registered Professional Engineer in Tennessee, he served as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics (2007-2012) and Review Chair for the Industry Power Converter Committee of IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications (2014-2017).