Prof. Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai graduated from National Taiwan Normal University in 1975 and received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1985 and 1989 respectively. Before studying abroad, he was Instructor and Electrical Engineering Department Chair of Mingchi Institute of Technology from 1980 to 1983. In 1989, he joined the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Power Electronics Applications Center (PEAC), where he managed EPRI-sponsored power electronics research projects. In 1993, he then join the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as the Power Electronics Lead Scientist, where he initiated a high power electronics program and developed several novel high power converters including multilevel converters and soft-switching inverters. In 1996, he joined the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Currently, he is the James S. Tucker Professor at Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and Director of Future Energy Electronics Center. His main research areas are in high efficiency power electronics conversions for high power and energy applications.  His work brought him several distinctive awards including a Technical Achievement Award in Lockheed Martin Award Night, Virginia Tech Dean’s Award on Research Excellence, four prize paper awards from IEEE IAS and best paper awards from IECON-97, IPEC-05, and PCC-07. His student teams won the first place award from 2009 TI Enginous Prize Analog Design Competition and 2011 Grand Prize Award from International Future Energy Challenge. He has published more than 300 technical papers and 2 books and received 22 U.S. patents. Dr. Lai chaired the 2000 IEEE Workshop on Computers in Power Electronics (COMPEL 2000), 2001 IEEE/DOE Future Energy Challenge, and 2005 IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC 2005).  Dr. Lai is an IEEE Fellow.