Leading vehicle electrification guest lecture inspires UON students

Postgraduate students studying the University of Northampton’s MSc Business Analytics and MSc Logistics and Supply Chain Management programmes got unique insights into innovations in the electric vehicle sector in a guest lecture from Dr Abbas Fotouhi.

Dr Abbas Fotouhi has an extensive research background in the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning and his research is focused on vehicular systems including hybrid and electric vehicle powertrain systems, energy storage technologies, and autonomous cars. Dr Fotouhi has an extensive research background in the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning within a variety of contexts. He has also been involved in research bid development with a total projects’ cost of over £19m, where he was successful to contribute to more than £1.8m income generation as an investigator (Co-I or PI). Additionally, Dr Abbas Fotouhi is a Fellow of the prestigious Faraday Institution in UK.

Student Harika Balimidi said: “The guest lecture given by Dr Fotouhi was very interesting and educational. The contents covered in the presentation, such as battery, charging infrastructures, and peak demand control policies gave me a few ideas for choosing my business research topic to work with.”

Looking to the future of sustainable and green transport, student Maxwell Ofosu said: “I am fascinated about the progress in research and the development of this technology. Dr. Abbas’ presentation was very good. I believe there’s more room for improvement and better hybrids are yet to be invented.”

Through the guest lecture, the students were able to explore, the political influences, and the adoption of green transport infrastructure developments, student, Udoka Okonta, said: “Dr Fotouhi provided insight into the possibilities and challenges of switching over to electric vehicles. His thoughts on the huge infrastructure drive by the UK government to enable electric vehicles, compared with the capability of developing countries was especially interesting for me.”

Dr Amin Hosseinian-Far, Associate Professor in Business Systems & Operations said, “We were delighted to host the guest lecture by such an esteemed colleague and researcher; such events contribute extensively to our research-informed teaching agenda at Northampton. Both the students and I found the session very interesting and insightful and generated discussions around emerging technologies and innovations that are occurring within a variety of sectors. Therefore, we would like to thank Abbas for his contribution, and we hope to have further collaborations with him.”