September ’25 Awards, Events & Recognitions
“Through ASPIRE, I gained intimate knowledge of the various industries and stakeholders working together to achieve viable transportation electrification, their efforts, and their individual places in the ecosystem. This understanding supported me in seeing the transportation electrification mission from the Cummins’ vantage point, contributing ideas and outputs that support Cummins’ unique role in advancing this mission.
“Research and collaboration skills that I’ve practiced through ASPIRE projects as well as the knowledge I’ve gained through working on them were directly applicable to my work at Cummins as well, particularly knowledge on wireless charging technologies and the systems of systems understanding.”
– Zainab Imran
Upcoming Events
Building on lessons learned at the Great Salt Lake Truck Show, the Utah Electrification Initiative, which is led by ASPIRE, is hosting a workshop on October 2 in collaboration with industry leaders, including Utah Clean Energy and the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE). The session offers engagement opportunities with experts, discussion of fleet electrification plan strategies, and updates on the latest programs and incentives.
Register for this upcoming opportunity!
Awards, Publications, and Successes
Congrats to all of our students, faculty, and staff for their recent achievements over this past month! Here are a few to note:
Congratulations to the many students who successfully completed their summer internships, including Abdullah Al Mehadi, Chandler Justice, Josh Christiansen, Zainab Imram, and Mahyar Vahedi Saheli. We applaud your efforts and successes
Read more about their successful summer internships!
Shout-out to Marium Rasheed for being selected as one of the recipients of the 2025 IEEE TEC Prize Ph.D. Thesis Talk Award with her talk entitled “Architectural Design of Hybrid Battery Energy Storage Systems with Integrated Active Balancing and Reconditioning Control.”
Read more about her exciting accomplishment!
On August 7-9, Masood Parvania and Kyle Goodrick attended the 2025 WIRED Grid Resilience Symposium in Calgary, Canada. Masood was a part of the organizing committee and led a panel at the event. Congratulations on the successful symposium!
Read more about their exciting opportunity!
Shout-out to Masood Parvania and Jennifer Seelig for representing ASPIRE at the official launch of The Nucleus Institute on August 28. It was an exciting opportunity to network with elected and industry officials. Masood also displayed innovative research via posters at the event.
Check out Jennifer’s LinkedIn post for more information and images!
We’d also like to recognize Jen Ramos-Chavez, who is now our new Nonprofit Project Manager. She will be fundamental to the ASPIRE Nonprofit and ensuring the future success of the center.
We’re excited to see all of the great things that she does through this new opportunity!
Congratulations to Mahyar Vahedi Saheli, former ASPIRE student, for his newest employment as a Rail Engineer at HDR. Good luck with this next chapter on your journey!
Check out their published paper entitled “Beyond Time and Cost: Exploring the Importance of Factors in Travel Mode Choices”!
Shout-out to Bryce Hesterman and Dorai Yelaverthi for their development of a medium-frequency, medium-voltage transformer ideal for medium-voltage equipment such as solid-state transformers, data centers, DC microgrid utility interfaces, and locomotives.
This innovative transformer was designed for high-efficiency resonant converts with zero-voltage switching (ZVS).
Explore the full technology and licensing opportunities!
Another big congratulations to all of these outstanding ASPIRE students, faculty, and staff! Thank you for representing ASPIRE well!