Biographical note

Dr. Rajesh Karki is Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. During 2005-2012, he chaired the Power Systems Research Group at the University of Saskatchewan. He has earlier worked for academic institutions and different industries in Nepal, and for GE Industrial Systems, Peterborough, ON, Canada. He has a B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Regional Engineering College (renamed National Institute of Technology), Durgapur, West Bengal, India and Masters and PhD degrees in electrical power engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He has served in various capacities in conferences, workshops and guest lectures in Canada and abroad and has published over 80 papers in reputable international journals and peer reviewed conferences. Dr. Karki has completed several consulting projects on system planning and reliability for Canadian electric utilities. He is a senior member of the IEEE and Professional Engineer in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada. His research interests include power system reliability and planning and reliability modeling and analysis of renewable energy systems.

Dr. Roy Billinton is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. He obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada and Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. He was with the System Planning and Production Divisions, Manitoba Hydro. In 1964, he joined the University of Saskatchewan, where he served as the Head of the Electrical Engineering Department, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, Research and Extension and the Acting Dean of Engineering. He has authored or co-authored eight books and more than 940 papers on power system reliability evaluation, economic system operation and power system analysis. Dr. Billinton is Fellow of the IEEE,Engineering Institute of Canada, Canadian Academy of Engineering, Royal Society of Canada. He is also Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Engineering and Professional Engineer in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2010, the IEEE-PES honoured Dr. Billinton by initiating the Roy Billinton Power System Reliability Award.

Ajit Kumar Verma is Professor in Engineering, Stord/Haugesund University College, Haugesund, Norway. He is also Guest Professor at Lulea University of Technology, Sweden. He was earlier Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India. Prof. Verma is Chairman of recently constituted Special Interest Group on System Assurance Engineering and Management of Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing, UC Berkeley. He is author of books titled Fuzzy Reliability Engineering-Concepts and Applications (Narosa), Reliability and Safety Engineering (Springer), Dependability of Networked Computer Based Systems (Springer) and Optimal Maintenance of Large Engineering System (Narosa) and has over 225 publications in various journals (over 100 papers) and conferences. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the OPSEARCH as well as Founder Editor-in-Chief of IJSAEM, both journals published by Springer and the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Life Cycle Reliability and Safety Engineering. He has been a guest editor of a dozen issues of international journals including IEEE Transactions on Reliability.