IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2021 - 90

In Memoriam
Remembering PELS Past President
Braham Ferreira
O
n 16 May 2021, Prof. Jan
Abraham (Braham) Ferreira,
head of the Power
Electronics and Electromagnetic
Compatibility (EMC) group at the
University of Twente, The Netherlands,
and past president of IEEE
Power Electronics Society (PELS),
passed away at the age of 62. On
that day, the power electronics community
lost a leader, educator, mentor,
and a friend. He was a humble
man of great accomplishment. Braham
was honored for his service to
PELS with the IEEE PELS Harry A.
Owen Distinguished Service Award
in a virtual ceremony on 4 May of
this year. The virtual ceremony was
attended by more than one hundred
colleagues and friends from all
around the world.
Braham had an impressive scientific
career and made significant contributions
to the field of power electronics.
He authored and co-authored
130 journal and transactions papers,
more than 400 conference papers,
and 15 patents. His contributions are
highly valued by the scientific community.
He was awarded 15 prize
paper awards, was Fellow of the
IEEE, and recipient of the IEEE IAS
Gerald Kliman Innovator Award and
the IEEE IAS Outstanding Achievement
Award. He served the power
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2021.3099469
date of current version: 13 September 2021
electronics and electrical machines
at the Delft University of Technology
in The Netherlands, served as head
of the department during 2006-2010,
and during 2017-2018 served as
general manager of the Del ft -
Beijing Institute of Intelligent Science
and Technology.
In 2019, Braham joined the UniverJan
Abraham " Braham " Ferreira:
1958-2021.
electronics community tirelessly for
decades, including being the president
of PELS, chair of The International
Technology Roadmap for Wide
Bandgap Power Semiconductors
(ITRW), initiator of the Empower a
Billion Lives (EBL), a global challenge
for energy access solutions, and
much more.
Braham started his academic
career in South Afr ica, at the
Rand A fri kaan s
Un iver s i ty, where
he received his B.Sc.,
M.Sc. and PhD and
stayed until 1997
holding the Carl and
Emily Fuchs Chair
of Power Electronics
in later years. During
1998-2018, he held
the chair in power
90 IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE z September 2021
On that day, the power
electronics community
lost a leader, educator,
mentor, and a friend.
He was a humble
man of great
accomplishment.
sity of Twente, filled with enthusiasm
and ambition to establish a leading
power electronics group. Combining
the power electronics expertise he
brought, along with the existing
strong EMC activities at Twente, he
envisioned a unique power electronics
and EMC research program that
would address some of the key challenges
of the transition to more
renewable for energy generation and
continued electrification of society:
battery storage integration, power
quality issues, universal energy
access, and increasing efficiency and
reliability. Through the ShenzenTwente
Power Electronics joint program,
he continued to pursue his
long-term research passion of electromagnetic
integration
and high power
density packaging.
He also envisaged
an innovative education
program, the
Twente method to
teach power electronics
that would
equip young generations
of students
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