Lucy Pao is a Palmer Endowed Chair Professor in the Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering Department at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder). She earned B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Her research has primarily focused on engineering control systems, with applications ranging from atomic force microscopes to multi-megawatt wind energy systems.

She has been General Chair of the American Control Conference, an elected member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Control Systems Society Board of Governors, a member of the U.S. Defense Science Study Group, and a member of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Executive Board as well as Technical Board. She is a Fellow of IEEE and of IFAC, and she is a foreign corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She is also a Fellow of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), a joint institute between NREL and CU Boulder, and it is through RASEI that Lucy has a joint appointment with NREL.

Selected recent recognitions include the 2017 American Automatic Control Council (AACC) Control Engineering Practice Award, the European Academy of Wind Energy’s 2017 Scientific Award, the 2019 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Nyquist Lecturer Award, CU Boulder’s 2022 Outstanding Postdoc Mentor of the Year Award, and being an IFAC Pavel J. Nowacki Distinguished Lecturer (2020-2023).

Research Interests

Control systems

Wind energy systems

Control co-design

Education

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

M.S., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

B.S., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Professional Experience

Palmer Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder (2018–Present)

Courtesy Professor, Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder (2010–Present)

Fellow, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (2009–Present)

Professor, Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder (2004–Present)

Richard and Joy Dorf Professor, Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder (2009–2014)