President
Antoine Khoury
President
Mr. Khoury received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 1988. He started his career working with a consulting firm for approximately 7 years before joining the public sector where he got most of his experience in managing consultants and negotiating new contracts. He joined ApECOR in 2002 as the president and contract manager. He has successfully negotiated several contracts with the Department of Defense and with commercial clients such as John Deere and Emerson Electronics and ensured that the contracts were completed on time and within budget.
Senior Design Engineers
Sam Abdel-Rahman
VP Engineering
Sam received his M.S. (2005) and PhD. (2007) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida (UCF). He has an excellent academic and practical knowledge of electronics, power management, power conversion topologies, power semiconductors, magnetic structures, control theory and closed loop design. His experience includes circuits and mathematical simulations, pcb layout, component selection, prototyping and testing.
John Elmes
VP Advanced Technology
John received a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from The College of New Jersey. He also received a Master's degree from the University of Central Florida, where he is currently pursuing a doctorate degree. John has a background in solar DC-DC conversion, high power-density and high efficiency DC-DC converters, and development of digital control structures for new and unconventional applications. His current research interests are low to medium power conversion and inversion, hybrid/electric vehicle power management, high density converter design and packaging, as well as solar battery charging.
Rene Kersten
VP Hardware Development
Rene received his Graduate Engineer Degree in Electrical Engineering & Communication Technology from the University of Ilmenau (Germany) in 2004. Rene is well skilled at the complete design process of developing power electronics converters including simulation, parts selection, cost analysis & optimization, PCB layout, software development, packaging, testing and final performance verification. He is experienced in high-power converters for hybrid electric vehicle applications, solar-powered converters, battery chargers, inverters and electronic ballasts for fluorescent tubes with PFC.
Michael Pepper
VP Software Development
Michael received his Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida in 2005. In 2009 he completed his Master's degree in Electrical Engineering also at UCF. During his undergraduate career he participated in the 2005 International Future Energy Challenge where the UCF team received an award for most innovative design. With four years of experience he is now a full time design engineer at ApECOR, where he focuses mainly on digital control, complex control theory, DSP, communication, and complete digital system integration.
Consultants
Dr. Issa Batarseh
Director, FloridaPEC Chair, School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of Central Florida
Dr. Issa Batarseh received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees - all in Electrical Engineering - from the University of Illinois in 1983, '85 and '90, respectively. Dr. Batarseh was a visiting Assistant Professor at Purdue University from 1989 to 1990 before joining the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCF in 1991. His major research interest is in power electronics, developing high frequency power converters to improve power density, efficiency and performance. The research includes the analysis and design of high frequency DC-to-DC resonant converter topologies; small signal modeling and control of PWM and resonant converters; power factor correction techniques; and power electronic circuits for distributed power systems applications. Dr. Batarseh has published more than 50 refereed journals and 170 conference papers in addition to 12 U.S. patents. He published a textbook entitled "Power Electronic Circuits"; with John Wiley in 2003. He is a registered professional engineer in Florida and a Senior Member of IEEE. He has served as a Chairman of the Power Engineering Chapter of the Orlando IEEE Section. As a PI, Batarseh has secured more than $4.75 millions in external funding in the last 10 years from federal agencies and private industries.
Dr. John Shen
Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of Central Florida
Dr. John Shen is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He received his BSEE from Tsinghua University (China) in 1987, MS and PhD both in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Between 1994 and 1999, he held a variety of positions including Senior Principal Staff Scientist with Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector in Phoenix, Arizona. He was with the University of Michigan-Dearborn as an Assistant and Associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering between 1999 and 2003. Dr. Shen's research areas include power electronics, power semiconductor devices and ICs, power management for computers and telecom equipment, automotive electronics, renewable and alternative energy systems, and electronics manufacturing. He has published over 60 journal and conference articles, and holds 8 issued and many pending US patents in these areas. He is the inventor of the world's first commercial power MOSFET with less than 1mOhm on-resistance. He is a recipient of the 2003 NSF CAREER Award, the 2003 IEEE Best Automotive Electronics Paper Award from IEEE Society of Vehicular Technology, and the 1996 Motorola Science and Technology Award. He is a senior member of IEEE and currently serves as the Automotive Power Electronics Technical Committee Chair and at-large AdCom member of the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He also serves as the Guest Editor-in-Chief of the 2006 Special Issue on Automotive Power Electronics of IEEE Transactions in Power Electronics.
Dr. Chris Iannello
Dr. Chris Iannello received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees, all in electrical engineering, from the University of Central Florida in 1994, 1999, and 2001, respectively. He has worked with NASA since 1989 in the Shuttle electrical power systems group at the Kennedy Space Center. His work with NASA has focused on the design, operation, and maintenance of low voltage power distribution with an emphasis on substation controls, emergency power systems, redundancy, and power quality. In addition to his power engineering tasks, he is also the Shuttle Program's energy manager. A certified energy manager, he is responsible for oversight and cost reduction of the program's annual utility budget and the implementation of large-scale energy efficiency retrofit projects. Dr. Iannello also works with universities to conduct research in the area of power electronics. He publishes on the subject of analysis and design of DC-DC and power factor correction converters and is involved in NASA funded research initiatives focusing on the production of high efficiency, high power density, power factor correctors.