The NSF grant winner and associate professor is working to improve the resilience of power grids while also indulging in his other love: history. 

Daniel Molzahn will readily admit he’s a Cheesehead.  

Born and brought up in Wisconsin, the associate professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for undergraduate and graduate studies. It was also at Madison that he decided to go into the family business: power engineering. 

Molzahn’s grandfather was a Navy electrician in World War II and later completed a bachelor’s in electrical engineering. He eventually was plant director at a big coal plant in Green Bay. Molzahn’s dad was also a power engineer and worked at a utility company, focusing on nuclear power.  

It was not uncommon for family vacations to include a visit to a coal mine or a nuclear power plant. Being steeped in everything power engineering eventually seeped into Molzahn’s bones. “I remember seeing all the infrastructure that goes into producing energy and it was endlessly fascinating for me,” he says.  

That endless fascination has worked its way into Molzahn’s research today—at the intersection of computation and power systems.