ABOUT CPES
Tim Thacker earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2003 and completed his M.S. (2005) and Ph.D. (2009) at the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES) as a Direct Ph.D. student. His graduate research focused on renewable energy and energy storage systems, grid-connected power electronics and controls, Power Electronics Building Blocks (PEBBs), parallel inverter control, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) charging with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services. He received doctoral fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF), General Electric (GE), and VPT Energy Systems, and served as an REU mentor, CPES Student Council Vice President, and Co-Chair of the 2007 CPES Annual Conference.
After graduation, Dr. Thacker joined VPT Energy Systems (PowerHub Systems) as Chief Engineer, leading the development of bidirectional Community Energy Storage (CES) systems based on lithium-ion batteries. He directed hardware development and implemented advanced grid-integration control strategies that addressed renewable energy back-feeding challenges on utility systems.
In 2015, he joined Motion Control Systems, Inc. as Director of Engineering and R&D, leading multidisciplinary teams developing permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) and advanced drive electronics for applications such as: precision motion control, semiconductor manufacturing, high-speed spindles, and underwater propulsion applications. His leadership there helped improve motor design, silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) power electronics based designs, and control systems with improved efficiency, reliability, noise performance, operational life, and mission duration across commercial/industrial and defense applications.
Dr. Thacker returned to Virginia Tech and CPES in 2024 as a Research Associate Professor. His current research focuses on electric propulsion systems, PMSM motor and drive design, multiphase and multilevel power converters, energy conversion and storage, grid-connected and microgrid systems, control theory, EMI/EMC mitigation, and power quality.
He has authored numerous journal and conference publications, holds a patent, and has contributed to multiple proprietary technologies throughout his academic and industrial career.
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