Fred C. Lee
Position: University Distinguished Professor (ECE); CPES Director
Office: 648 Whittemore Hall, Virginia Tech | Email: fclee@vt.edu | Phone: (540) 231-7716
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Fred C. Lee received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan in 1968. He went on to receive M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Duke University in 1972 and 1974, respectively.
Dr. Lee is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech and prior to that he was the Lewis A. Hester Chair of Engineering at Virginia Tech. He directs the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), a National Science Foundation engineering research center whose participants include five universities and over 80 corporations. In addition to Virginia Tech, participating CPES universities are the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, North Carolina A&T State University, and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez.
Prior to the establishment of CPES, Dr. Lee was the founder and director of the Virginia Power Electronics Center (VPEC), one of the largest university-based power electronics research centers in the country. VPEC’s Industry-University Partnership Program provides an effective mechanism for technology transfer, and an opportunity for industries to profit from VPEC’s research results. VPEC’s programs have been able to attract world-renowned faculty and visiting professors to Virginia Tech who, in turn, attract an excellent cadre of undergraduate and graduate students.
During his tenure at Virginia Tech, Dr. Lee has supervised to completion 73 Masters-level and 63 Ph.D. students. He is currently supervising 8 Ph.D. students and 7 MS students. Total sponsored research funding secured by Dr. Lee over the last 30 years exceeds $75 million. His research interests include high-frequency power conversion, distributed power systems, space power systems, power factor correction techniques, electronics packaging, high-frequency magnetics, device characterization, and modeling and control of converters. Dr. Lee holds 46 U.S. patents, and has published over 220 journal articles in refereed journals, over 130 invited presentations in professional meetings and more than 550 technical papers in conference proceedings. He is a recipient of the Society of Automotive Engineering’s Ralph R. Teeter Education Award (1985), Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for Research Excellence (1990), the College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research (1997).
Dr. Lee is an active member in the professional community of power electronics engineers. He chaired the 1995 International Conference on Power Electronics and Drives Systems, which took place in Singapore, and co-chaired the 1994 International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference, held in Beijing. During 1993-94, Dr. Lee served as president of the IEEE Power Electronics Society and, before that, as program chair and then conference chair of IEEE-sponsored Power Electronics Specialists Conferences. In 1989, Dr. Lee received the William E. Newell Power Electronics Award, the highest award presented by the IEEE Power Electronics Society for outstanding achievement in the power electronics discipline. He is also the recipient of the Power Conversion and Intelligent Motion Award for Leadership in Power Electronics Education (1990), the Arthur E. Fury Award for Leadership and Innovation in Advancing Power Electronic Systems Technology (1998) and the IEEE Millennium Medal and the Ernst-Blickle Award for outstanding scientific achievements (2005). Dr. Lee has received honorary professorships from Shanghai University of Technology, Shanghai Railroad and Technology Institute, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Nanjing Aeronautical Institute, Zhejiang University, and Tsinghua University.