Samir Kouro was born in Valdivia in 1978. He received his degree in electrical civil engineering as well as his master’s and doctorate in electrical engineering at the UTFSM in 2004 and 2008 respectively. Since 2004 he has been a part of the Electronics Department in the same line of investigation in various positions, currently in the post of Young Academic. From 2009 to 2011 he did a post-doctoral fellowship at Ryeron University in Toronto, Cananda.
His academic interests are in potential energies and systems for converting renewable energy. Dr. Kouro has directed five Fondecyt projects, is the principal researcher for the Fondap SERC Chile project, and is the associate researcher for the Basal CCTval; he is the co-author of a book in which he penned three chapters, and more than 70 publications in magazines and international conferences with evaluation committees. He has served as a member of the editorial board for special sessions of more than 10 conferences and has been invited as an editor to a special number of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics and one of the IEEE’s Transactions on Power Electronics. The doctor received the IEE Richard M. Bass award for outstanding work as a young engineer in power electronics from the IEEE Power Electronics Society in 2012, the “best paper of the year” from IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics in 2012, and the best paper of the year prize from the IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine in 2008. He also received the “Ismael Valdés” prize from the Chilean Institute of Engineers in 2005 and was recognized by the president of the Republic of Chile as the youngest researcher to join the Fondecyt project in 2004.