Biography
Professor Gajda teaches power systems courses in the Master of Science in Electric Power Systems Engineering program. Before joining the ECE faculty in 2024, he worked extensively across the energy & electric utility industry for over 30 years, and was an adjunct lecturer in the ECE department for more than 10 years. His roles have spanned industry, regulatory agencies, cooperative utilities, investor-owned utilities, consulting, solar power, federal government, and academia.
Mr. Gajda’s areas of expertise are distribution system protection, generator interconnections, protective relay and inverter-based resource settings management, and distribution and transmission regulatory policy. He has served on multiple IEEE working groups related to generator interconnections, has testified multiple times before the North Carolina Utilities Commission, and has submitted an affidavit before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Mr. Gajda has developed and written multiple utility internal design standards and manuals. He is a licensed professional engineer in North and South Carolina and is a Senior Member of IEEE.
Education
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Bachelor's
1990
Electrical Engineering
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville -
Master's
1994
Electrical Engineering
North Carolina State University
Involvement
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IEEE
Senior Member