Slav is a fourth-year PhD student at the University of Strathclyde researching at the intersection of Computer Science and Physics, with a focus on machine learning–based optimisation techniques for laser–plasma systems. Before beginning his doctoral studies, he worked as a software developer across both private industry and research environments.
Within the ENSIGN project, Slav serves as a Research Software Engineer and leads development of the interactive ENSIGN Low-Voltage Network Demonstrator for WP2-Electrical Network Sub-Digital Twin. His work involves streamlining the system architecture, improving performance, and modularising key components to support future development. He is also contributing to the integration of additional networks into the demonstrator and supporting the incorporation of machine learning models developed by the wider team, which will generate demand profiles for stakeholders.
Dr. Junyi Lu recently completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde (February 2026), and he now brings his expertise into Work Package 2, focusing on the development of the project’s Electrical Network Sub‑Digital Twin.
Junyi is leading efforts to build and validate advanced digital twin models for the Glasgow and Southport areas—integrating electrical engineering principles with data‑driven insights. His work involves:
Together, these contributions will significantly strengthen Ensign’s ability to support a resilient, low‑carbon, multi‑energy future.
Professor Qiteng Hong, WP 2 co-lead, is a Professor at the University of Strathclyde in the UK. He received his BEng (Hons) degree as the top graduate of the year in 2011 and PhD in 2015, both from Strathclyde. His main research area is on monitoring protection and control of future power systems dominated by converter-interfaced renewable energy sources. Professor Hong has led/been involved with 40+ research projects, and secured funding with a total value of £10M, among which he was the PI for 20+ projects (over £2M). He also has 80+ publications in international journals and conferences.
Professor Hong is a Member in the CIGRE Working Group (WG) B5.50, IEEE WG P2004, IEEE Task Force on Cloud-Based Control of Multi-Party Resources, and IET DPSP Conference Technical Committee; he was the Technical Lead at the CIGRE UK Next Generation Network between 2016-2020 and the Honorary Secretary for the IET Scotland South West Committee until 2018. He received the IET Prize in 2011, the J. Lessells scholarship from Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013 and the Best Paper Award in IEEE APAP Conference in 2019.
Dr Mariam Elshiekh is a research associate at the Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department, University of Strathclyde. Prior to that, she was a lecturer at Tanta University, Egypt, and a Postdoctoral fellow at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. She obtained her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bath, UK, in 2020 and spent one year as a visiting researcher at Strathclyde University. Her research interests lie in the areas of power networks modelling, Integration of renewable energy, and smart grids.
Mariam is working on the Ensign project at WP2 and is responsible for developing a digital twin for the electrical network. Mariam is now looking forward to living in Glasgow with her family, in a very different climate to the Egypt and Saudi Arabia!
Dr Bruce Stephen BSc MSc PhD CEng MBCS SMIEEE FHEA is a Senior Lecturer within the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Strathclyde University and is co-lead for ENSIGN WP2. Over the past 25 years, his research output in the areas of artificial intelligence and distributed computing applications have been supported with funding from both industrial and government sources. While this research has spanned multiple disciplines, since 2009, his research has focused mainly on complex dependency modelling across power network and energy system assets and understanding energy end use, including as an investigator on the EPSRC BuildTEDDI APAtSCHE project (EP/K002708/1), the EPSRC/ESC TESA (EP/R002312/1) project, the EPSRC AGILE (EP/S003088/1) project and the FP7 ORIGIN project (FP7 grant agreement No 314742), and was PI of the EPSRC AMIDiNe project (EP/S030131/1).
