The Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance has named FIU professor and energy grid researcher Arif Sarwat the recipient of its 2026 World Class Faculty Award, which recognizes outstanding educators whose research and academic leadership enhance the region's overall economic competitiveness.
"It is a tremendous honor to be recognized by the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance for my team's work," says Sarwat, a distinguished university professor and chair of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at FIU's College of Engineering & Computing.
"The two things that play so importantly in decision-making for major companies are a continuous, reliable supply of electricity and a highly trained young generation. I'm proud to say that FIU is making major contributions to both."
Sarwat and his Energy, Power & Sustainability-Intelligence (EPSi) lab have spent years turning FIU's Engineering Center into a living laboratory for the grid technologies powering South Florida's future. Leveraging a large solar array and smart microgrid on campus, his team develops AI-based control systems under real operational conditions, advancing grid reliability, resilience and efficiency. The lab's core research areas includes federated learning, agentic AI, wireless power transfer (WPT) and advanced applications for microgrids and distributed energy resources.
More than 80 documented EPSi graduates have gone on to careers at Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) alone, trained on the same industrial-grade systems they would operate in the field.
