Speakers

Dr. Murty V.V.S. Yalla is VP-GM of Protection & Controls business unit (Beckwith Electric & EIG brands) of Hubbell. He held various leadership roles at Beckwith since joining in 1989 including company president from 2005 to 2020. Dr. Yalla received a BSEE from JNTU India; a MSEE from IIT, Kanpur, India; and a Ph.D. in EE from the UNB, Canada. He was the chair of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee 95, Measuring Relays and Protection Equipment from 2015 to 2024. He is former chair of the IEEE Power System Relaying and Control (PSRC) committee. He was a U.S. delegate to the International Council on Large Electric Systems (CIGRÈ) for working groups on protecting and monitoring of generating plants and power transformers. He was a member of the NERC System Protection and Control Subcommittee. Dr. Yalla holds seven U.S. patents in digital controls and protective relays. He is an IEEE Fellow (2006) for contributions in computer relays for power systems. He was the organizer of IEEE PES tutorials on “Distribution volt-var control and optimization” and “Cybersecurity of Electric Power Transmission and Distribution”. He received the 2004 IEEE PES Working Group Recognition Award for outstanding technical report “Application of Peer-to-Peer Communications for protective relaying”. He received the IEEE Florida Council Outstanding Engineer Award in 2005 and 2018. Dr. Yalla received the IEC 1906 Award in 2010 and the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce Businessman of the Year Award in 2013. In 2021, Dr. Yalla was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering for contributions to digital protection and control devices for the grid in 2021.