2027 Grid Science Winter School and Conference

The "Grid Science" program at Los Alamos National Laboratory combines complex systems, statistical physics, control theory, optimization, machine learning with energy system engineering to develop innovative approaches to new and challenging programs in the design, optimization, and control of the electrical grid, natural gas networks and other complex engineered networks. This LANL program is funded by the Advanced Grid Modeling Program in Office of Electricity in U.S. Department of Energy.

In addition to the research that we are carrying out in the program, a significant program component is the development of a research community around Grid Science. We believe that the best way to develop this community is to bring together and foster interactions between experts in Grid Science research areas and the best students and postdocs in these areas. To this end, LANL has organized six Grid Science Winter School and Conferences in January of 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2025. We will be holding our 7th Biennial Grid Science Winter School and Conference during the week of January 11-15, 2027. The 7th Grid Science Winter School and Conference will cover theoretical and algorithmic aspects of electrical and interdependent networks that have immediate and potential future importance to the research community. The areas of focus for this incarnation of the Winter School and Conference are emerging from theoretical needs perceived within DOE Office of Electricity including topics like resilience, distribution modeling, artificial intelligence and interdependent energy systems. Several of these needs are challenging crosscuts between related, but often isolated, research areas, including Analysis, Optimization, Control and Machine Learning over Physical Networks. 

Consistent with previous editions, the entire event will last for five days (January 11-15, 2027) - three days of the Winter School followed by two days of the Conference, with the exact proportion to be determined based upon availability of the lecturers and seminar speakers. The Winter School portion will consist of 9 lecture blocks (each block representing a subject) given in three days to roughly 30-40 graduate students and postdocs chosen via an application and screening process to ensure high quality attendees that are able to extract the maximum possible from the event. To ground the students and to establish a common frame of reference for the following theoretical topic areas, the School will cover three topics of increasing relevance to power systems research: 1)  AI and Energy Systems, 2) Optimization and Energy Systems 3) Control and Energy Systems. The approximately 60-90 minute lectures will consist of a general introduction to the area and in depth discussion of examples to provide a more solid understanding of the approaches. The intent is not to make the students immediately able to apply the theoretical techniques, but rather to demonstrate the usefulness of the methods, stimulate interest in them, and develop crosscutting collaboration between students from different disciplines.

The Winter School is followed by the Conference consisting of presentations by established and emerging top researchers in theoretical methods applied to energy networks. Robust discussion and debate of topics will be encouraged. Each junior attendee of the Winter School will be required to present a poster and a committee of judges will select several posters for presentation at the Conference.
 

Organizing Committee:

Harsha Nagarajan (LANL)

Manuel Garcia (LANL)

Russell Bent (LANL)

Adam Mate (LANL)

Noah Rhodes (LANL)

Robert Ferrando (LANL)

Robert Parker (LANL)

Johanna Mathieu (U of Michigan)

Michael Chertkov (U of Arizona)