Pragasen Pillay

Pragasen Pillay (born 1958) is a South African electrical engineer known for his research in power engineering and renewable energy technology. He has been a professor at Concordia University since 2008. Before that, he was a professor at Clarkson University from 1995 to 2007. He was appointed as an honorary professor at the University of Cape Town in 2017.

Education Pillay was born in 1958. From 1978 to 1983, he studied electrical engineering at present-day University of KwaZulu-Natal. He completed a B.Eng. in 1981 at the University of Durban–Westville, supported by a scholarship from Anglo American, and then completed an M.S. in 1983 at the University of Natal, supported by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. While a student, he was a trainee engineer at Mondi SA in 1980 and an electrical engineer at the Electricity Supply Commission of South Africa in 1984.

Academic career Between 1988 and 1990, he was a lecturer at Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. At Concordia, he is a member of the Power Engineering and Energy Research Group. ''' In later years he was named as an IEEE IAS Distinguished Lecturer in 2012 to 2013 and as IEE IAS Prominent Lecturer in 2014 to 2015.

In South Africa, he won the 2006 T. W. Kambule Award for Senior Black Researchers, presented by the South African National Science and Technology Forum and sponsored by the National Research Foundation. On 28 October 2008, as well as a fellow of the United Kingdom's Institution of Engineering and Technology.