Thomas Strasser earned a PhD in mechanical engineering with a focus on automation and control theory and a master's degree in industrial engineering with a focus on production and automation systems from the Vienna University of Technology. For several years, he has been a senior scientist in the Energy Department of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology. His main responsibilities involve strategic development of smart grid research projects and mentoring and advising junior scientist and PhD candidates. Before joining AIT, Dr. Strasser spent more then 6 years as senior researcher investigating advanced and reconfigurable automation and control systems at PROFACTOR. He is active as a lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology and as a guest professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg.

He is the co-author of more than 150 scientific publications as well as 2 patents in the above mentioned areas. Thomas Strasser has presented results of his research work in various international and national conferences, workshops, events, and seminars. He is an active member of several program committees of scientific conferences and serves as an associate editor of Springer, Hindawi, and IEEE Journals.

Dr. Strasser was and is involved as scientific and/or sub-project coordinator in several national (KLIEN DG-EV-HIL, FIT-IT µCrons, FIT-IT eCEDAC, FIT-IT FRONTICS, FFG 4DIAC, FFG OpenNES, etc.) and international research projects (FP6 NoE I*PROMS, FP6 IP PISA, FP7 STREP MEDEIA, FP7 DERri, FP7 ELECTRA IRP, H2020 ERIGrid, etc.). In addition, he is an evaluator of R&D proposals and projects for the European Commission, Eureka Eurostars, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Czech Science Foundation. He is member of the IEC SC65B/WG15, IEC TC65/WG17, IEC SyC Smart Energy/WG6, and IEEE P2660.1. Moreover, as senior member of the IEEE he is involved in several activities of the IES, SMCS, and PES societies and the IEEE Austria Section. Dr. Strasser is also one of the founding members of the 4diac open source initiative.

Dr. Strasser is active in the following research fields:

Industrial Automation and Control Systems
• Distributed embedded industrial automation and control
• Recon?gurable and adaptive control systems
• Mechatronical approaches - plug and produce systems
• Monitoring and diagnosis in distributed systems
• Model-driven approaches for industrial automation solutions
• Open source software development
• Standards development (i.e., IEC 61499)

Smart Electric Grids
• Power utility automation
• Modelling and (real-time) simulation
• Controller and power hardware-in-the-loop simulation
• Distributed generation
• Distributed control approaches for smart grid applications
• ICT for smart grid systems
• Standards for smart grids (IEC 61850, CIM, SunSpec, etc.)

Control Theory
•Adaptive control and identi?cation
•Fault diagnosis (fault detection, fault isolation, etc.)