PhD in Virtual Power Plant Battery Research at City College of New York (Electrical Engineering, Energy Systems) City College of New York in United States

The City College of New York (CCNY) is offering an immediate PhD opportunity in the Department of Electrical Engineering, focusing on Virtual Power Plant (VPP) battery research. This position is part of the Translational Research Excellence Across Disciplines (TREAD) program, funded by the US Department of Education. The research will center on identifying battery chemistries and planning battery deployments for cost-optimal load management of residential and small commercial US customers. The goal is to improve utility programs and achieve at least 10% savings per household or business within five years, moving beyond traditional peak shaving to pragmatic coordination of services valuable to distribution systems through the VPP paradigm.

The successful candidate will join the DEgIDAL group at CCNY and collaborate with Prof. Panayiotis (Panos) Moutis and Prof. Sanjoy Banerjee, as well as the CUNY Energy Institute. The position offers at least two years of guaranteed stipend at the highest NYC research assistant rate, plus ample funding for research materials, experimental facilities, and travel to conferences and workshops.

Applicants must be US citizens or legal permanent residents (green card holders). They should demonstrate extensive expertise in energy modeling and electricity markets, a strong background in optimization and statistics (including Bayesian statistics, cone programming, and stochastic programming), and coding experience, preferably in artificial intelligence paradigms such as neural networks, decision trees, SVMs, clustering, or genetic algorithms. Evidence of these skills should be provided via transcripts or peer-reviewed publications.

The PhD student will benefit from interdisciplinary training and access to state-of-the-art research facilities. The application deadline is August 1, 2025, for a start in Spring or Fall 2026. For more information, visit the TREAD program website or the provided blog post. To apply, email your CV to Prof. Moutis with the specified subject line.