Alaa Selim
Postdoctoral Associate
Energy Team
alaa993@mit.edu
Research Interests
Alaa’s research focuses on power systems, critical infrastructure, and learning-based control and optimization. His background spans microgrids, distributed energy resources, grid resilience, cyber-physical security, and intelligent control. At MIT, he works with the K. Lisa Yang GEAR Center Energy Team and MCSC on AI data centers as a growing energy and infrastructure challenge. His work combines problem scoping, system modeling, optimization, and AI methods, including agentic AI, to study how computing demand, cooling, onsite energy resources, and grid interaction can be coordinated to reduce energy use, water consumption, and carbon impact while maintaining reliable operation.
Education
Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Connecticut, 2025
Advanced Master in Sustainable Blue Growth, University of Trieste, 2021
M.Sc., Electrical Engineering, Ain Shams University, 2020
B.Sc., Electrical Engineering, Ain Shams University, 2016
Selected Honors and Awards
Yang Tan Collective, K. Lisa Yang GEAR Fellowship, MIT, 2026–2027
Best Research Award, IEEE PES Grid Edge Conference PhD Competition, 2025
Best Paper Award, IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting, 2025
Poster Competition Winner - Machine Learning for Optimization, INFORMS Annual Meeting, 2025
Hobbies
Hiking, skiing, reading, coding, photography, and exploring new places and cultures.