Dr. José R. Martí is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of British Columbia. He has over 25 years of professional experience and is internationally recognized for his work in real time simulation of large complex networks including power system networks and system-of-systems networks. He has written over 250 publications on real time power systems simulation, modelling of large complex systems, and critical systems interdependencies. Dr. Martí is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of British Columbia. He is the leader of UBC’s Complex Systems Integration Laboratory developing real time simulation tools for optimization and decision support in multi-layered physical and human environments. Current work includes the development of a system of systems simulator i2Sim that integrates the interdependencies and flow of resources among critical infrastructures (e.g., power system, water system, transportation system, ICT system, etc.). This tool is currently being applied in the development of the Disaster Response Network Enabled Platform (DR-NEP) that combines expertise and simulation capabilities across research centres geographically disperse to provide planning, training, and real time decision support for disaster managers and responders to optimize the allocation of resources in order to minimize the loss of human lives during large disasters. Working with planners and responders, the DR-NEP/i2Sim platform was used to optimize disaster scenarios in connection with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Also, working with Canadian and international research partners, the platform has been used to simulate disaster scenarios in the campuses of the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Ontario, the island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, and the Sendai Japanese disaster of March, 2011.

Dr. K. D. Srivastava is a Life-Time Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia. He is actively engaged in R&D in the broad area of power and energy systems and complex systems analysis and simulation. He is known internationally for his contributions to power systems and high-voltage engineering and has authored over 150 technical reports, papers and books. Dr. Srivastava is a Fellow of the IET(UK), a Fellow of the IEEE(USA) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (UK). Before moving to Canada from the UK he was a Principal Scientific Officer at the UK Rutherford High Energy Nuclear Particle Accelerator Laboratory at Harwell. He then became a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where he was the Department Chairman from 1972 to 1978. In 1983 in moved to the University of British Columbia as Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 1986 he was appointed as a Vice President of the university responsible for student affairs, the University Library System and the IT Infrastructure Services. Some of his industrial R&D consultancies include, in Canada, the Ontario Hydro Research Lab., Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., Chalk River, BC Hydro, and Powertech Labs, and in the USA, Universal Voltronics Corp, NY, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Magneflux Corp, California. Professor Srivastava has also been very active in several international development projects in Brazil, India and the Caribbean. Dr. Srivastava has been one of the leading Co-PI’s in UBC’s JIIRP and V2010 Olympics projects.

William Wang (M.A.Sc) is the project manager, technical liaison and software architect for the I2Sim/DR-NEP group. He has been working in the I2Sim/DR-NEP team since 2010. He worked on all phases of the development of the DR-NEP platform and is an expert on the architectural design and implementation of the I2Sim/DR-NEP functions.

Mohammed Talat Khouj is a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia, BC, Canada. He received his degree of Electrical Engineer from King Abdul Aziz University in 2001, and Master of Engineering in Industrial Engineering from King Abdul Aziz University as well in 2007. His principle field of research is resource allocation optimization. He is currently studying and analysing the outputs of the modelled interconnected critical infrastructures system. The goal of the research is to optimize the system outcomes by reallocating the available limited resources using artificial intelligence techniques.

Cesar E. Lopez received the degree of Systems Engineer and Specialization degree in University Lecturing from the Cooperative University of Colombia in 2001 and 2004, respectively. He earned the MASc degree in 2012 and currently is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia. His main research interest is real-time simulation of complex systems, with special interest in infrastructures interdependencies, including energy systems and disaster response scenarios.

Khaled Alutaibi is a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC. He is a member of the Complex Systems Integration Laboratory, and his supervisor is Prof. José R. Martí. He received his M.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, under the supervision of Dr. Lahouari Ghouti. He received a B.Sc. degree in computer engineering from KFUPM and a B.Sc. degree in Security Science from King Fahd Security Collage, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His areas of interest are modeling of interdependent infrastructures, optimizing resource allocation, and vulnerability and cascading failures on complex networks.

Abdullah Alsubaie received the B.S. in Electrical Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia (2004) and MEng in Electrical Engineering from University of British Columbia, Canada (2010). He worked as a control systems engineer in the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) and gained his practical experience in power plants operations and industrial automation systems for power networks. In 2011, he joined King AbdulAziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) as a researcher and engaged in different Smart Grids projects. Currently, he is pursuing the PhD degree in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of British Columbia.His research interests include modelling and simulation of smart grids, Interdependency modelling of critical infrastructures, and reliability of advanced electrical distribution networks.

Arash Tavighi has worked on enhancing power quality disturbances (such as Harmonics and Voltage Sag/Swell) via computer simulation using PSCAD/EMTDC and MATLAB/Simulink. He proposed an efficient control system for DVR which can mitigate voltage sag of distribution networks in presence of harmonic pollution with swift response. He is currently working on power system transient modeling and simulation under supervision of Professor Jose R. Marti.

Benxin Zhang worked on modeling of the interdependency of the infrastructures (UBC campus model) in order to simulate several possible scenarios under a specific disaster event. Currently I am working on the mathematical representation of the new version of I2Sim toolbox. By applying the Gauss Seidel method, the system of non-linear equations can be solved iteratively generated by the I2Sim models. In the meantime, by using the least square method, each column of the Human Readable Table (HRT) can be represented by a parabola function. The main purpose of doing so is to find the Jacobian matrix which indicates the steepest increase of our function and to find the optimal solution of the system.

Hamed Ahmadi has been working on the impacts of large-scale wind farms on power system transient stability and operation. He has also some backgrounds on power system optimization, probabilistic studies and high voltage engineering. His current research is mostly focused on distribution system optimization within a smart environment. Prof. J. R. Marti is his supervisor for his PhD study.

Verónica Adriana Galván Sánchez was born in Puerto Peñasco, México, in 1984. She received the B.S. degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Universidad de Guadalajara, México, in 2007 and 2011, respectively. She has been pursuing the PhD degree at Cinvestav, Guadalajara, México, since 2011. She is now on study leave at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her research interests include hybrid power system dynamics simulation and real-time simulation of large systems.

Shima Shojae is a Master of Applied Science (MASc) student under the supervision of Dr. Jose Marti in the Power and Energy group at the University of British Columbia. She did her Bachelor’s degree at Sharif University of Technology in Iran. Her Bachelor’s project was about analyzing different renewable energy storage methods with focus on CAES (Compressed Air Energy Storage). Her skills sets span power systems as well as signal processing. In particular, optimization of power system operation, power protection, advanced power systems control and dynamics, power electronics, network analysis and simulation, and digital signal and image processing.

Nafiseh Nikpour (M.A.Sc.) is a PhD candidate in electrical Power Systems at the University of British Columbia, pursuing studies and research under the supervision of Dr. José R. Martí. She has worked as electrical design engineer at consulting engineers and electrical manufacturer companies for a few years. She is currently conducting research and studies on Electrical Power Distribution Systems with Distributed Generation for her doctoral degree. She has proposed a novel method for the voltage management of distribution systems with a focus on the systems with Distributed Generation (DG), considering the voltage profile and voltage sensitivity. For the dynamic voltage stability studies of the distribution systems, she uses Shifted Frequency Analysis (SFA).

Dr. Brian Fisher is an expert in cognition and user interface design. He has considerable expertise in how end users handle and reason about complex data and is currently working with provincial, national and international emergency management organizations to understand how to structure software to deliver information in ways that Emergency Operations centre staff can quickly absorb and act upon in stressful situations. Dr. Fisher will contribute to the design of the interactions of the DR-NEP/WAD services within the Virtual Emergency Operations Centre in a way that combines the science of human cognition and collaboration with the exigencies of decision-making in crisis situations.

Dr. Carlos Ventura is the Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Ventura has an extensive national and international experience in assessing the effects of earthquakes and seismic hardening of buildings and infrastructure. Dr. Ventura and his team will be involved in the damage assessment functions of the DR-NEP/WAD services.

The UBC group has a long standing collaboration with the critical infrastructures research group at ENEA in Rome. The ENEA group is one of the platforms interconnected with the DR-NEP network and we are currently actively pursuing the expansion of having multi-simulators participating in real time in a federated environment. We are also working closely with ENEA in the fp7 CIPRNet consortium to develop a European network to develop expertise and cooperation for improved disaster response.

Dr. Arvind Singh has been involved with the DR-NEP development for many years. He was one of the main researchers in the Sendai disaster modelling under NEP-2. He has now started his own research team in the University of West Indies in Trinidad and is actively collaborating with emergency responders in the Caribbean area. His knowledge of i2Sim and of the particular problems that the disaster responders face in the area will be very useful to give a wider dimension to the developments under this proposal. One of our main research concerns is that the tools that we develop are actually “usable” by the disaster response community. The aspect of human factors and usability under different scenarios also ties in with Dr. Fisher’s work and contribution to this project.

STS is a BC based software company specializing in the development of real-time sensor software. It has developed a web centric sensor platform (WoTKit) that allows for the easy development of real world software that exploits web technologies and practices. It has significant expertise in building and deploying wide area sensing infrastructure along with mobile applications for participatory sensing. Within the project, the STS team will architect the sensing framework that will source data feeds from, earthquake sensors, existing infrastructure as well as end user devices and provide well defined APIs for the DR-NEP's simulation. Additionally STS will lead the development of the visualization of the situational awareness derived from the DR-NEP simulation and its integration into the EOC. STS will work directly with UBC engineering (Jose Marti) on the former and both engineering and Dr Fisher's team on the second component.

Dr. Capretz has many years of experience developing complex software projects in industry and academia. Dr. Capretz was a major contributor in the DR-NEP project under NEP-2 in defining ontological mappings for critical infrastructures simulation. Her current research interests are focused on “Big Data” applications and include cloud-based NoSQL data stores and the capability of interpreting and comparing situations with data derived from large data sets obtained from sensor feeds and social media. These are key activities for the proposed DR-NEP/WAD services.

Benedito Donizeti Bonatto received his Electrical Engineering degree with honors from EFEI, today UNIFEI - Federal University of Itajuba (1991), the Master of Applied Science (MSc.) degree from UNICAMP – The State University of Campinas (1995), the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UBC - The University of British Columbia, Vancouver-BC, Canada (2001), under the supervision of Dr.-Ing. Hermann W. Dommel (the author of the EMTP – Electromagnetic Transients Program), successfully concluded the CEAG - Post-Graduation Specialization Course in Administration for Graduates from FGV - Getulio Vargas Foundation, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2005), the Post-Graduate Specialization Course in Instructional Design for Virtual Distance Learning: Technologies, Techniques and Methodologies from UAB / UNIFEI - Open University of Brazil in UNIFEI, (2008) and also the Post-Graduate Specialization Course in Work Safety Engineering from PECE – Continuing Education Program at EPUSP – Polytechnic School of USP – The University of Sao Paulo, Brazil (2011) and also from FEPI – University Center of Itajuba, Brazil (2012). He was Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at UBC, collaborating with Professor Dr. José R. Martí´s Research Group, during his Post-Doctorate studies, in Vancouver, BC. Canada (2013-2014). His areas of interest include power quality, smart grids, electromagnetic transients, electricity market regulation, economics, work safety and engineering education. Prof. Bonatto is a registered professional engineer in Brazil, and is also a Senior Member of the IEEE - The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.