Tonge is a fourth-year student in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). He will be graduating this May with his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. 

Tonge has been an IEEE PES Scholarship Plus recipient for the past two years, and this year, he has been selected as the John W. Estey Outstanding Scholar for Region 3. Tonge has most recently held an internship with the Green Power EMC/Oglethorpe Power Corporation, where he was an Emerging Technologies Intern. 

Tonge has been working on a utility-scale battery energy storage system project to better utilize and regulate the output from a solar generation plant in order to research and develop the technology for Georgia’s electric membership cooperatives (EMCs). These EMCs supply power to more than four million people across the state. 

Tonge credits his passion for engineering to his family, who are great problem solvers and are always fixing problems through creative solutions. He hopes to be involved in the modernization of the electric grid through the implementation of automated switching, distributed generation, and other smart grid technologies in the local community.