Invited Presenters and Preliminary Schedule
Please Note: Speakers listed below are invited at this time – final list of confirmed panelists will be published by mid-February. The time for each session may also be revised.
Tuesday, May 19, 2026

8:00 – 9:00 AM – Check in and Welcome Breakfast

9:00 – 9:30 AM
Opening Keynote: Grid of the Future – Market Drivers, Trends, Challenges & Opportunities
Nisha Begwani — Director of Strategy & Energy Policy, ComEd

9:30 – 10:30 am
Electrification at Scale: Managing the Next Wave of Load Growth
• Building, transportation, heating, and industrial electrification
• Accommodating data center and other large load growth

Sara Baldwin – Senior Director, Electrification, Energy Innovation
Stacy Noblet – VP, Transportation Electrification, ICF

10:30 – 11:00 am – Networking Coffee Break

11:00 – 12:15 pm
Emerging Enabling Smart Grid Technologies for Grid Modernization
• Smart grid tools for the future network
• ADMS/DERMS integration considerations
• Distribution automation architectures

James Conrad – Senior Director, Smart Grid, SCADA & Distribution Technology, PPL Electric Utilities
Zach Pollock — Director of Grid Strategy & Emerging Technologies, Xcel Energy
Andrew Cifala — Strategic Portfolio Planner for Grid Modernization, Keysight Technologies

12:15 – 1:15 pm – Lunch

1:15 – 2:30 PM
Regulatory & Policy Evolution for Optimizing Grid Modernization
• Identifying and implementing required process reforms
• Implications for planning, interconnection, and modernization timelines

Abigail Anthony, Commissioner, Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission
Nick Wagner, Vice President - Regulatory, Black Hills Energy (former State Utility Commissioner)
Ari Peskoe, Director, Electricity Law Initiative, Harvard Law School

2.30-3.00 pm Networking Coffee Break

3.00 – 3.30 pm Speed Networking

3:30 – 5:00 pm
Transmission Resilience, Substation Strategies & Distribution Network Modernization
• Grid-enhancing technologies for transmission
• Substation modernization & legacy network interoperability
• Distribution system automation architectures

Alexandra Wiesehan, PE — Director, Transmission & Distribution Group, Midwest Region, Burns & McDonnell
Christopher Hirsch, Principal Director, Accenture
Paul Gogan, Director, Electric Distribution Asset Management, WEC Energy Group

5:00 – 6:30 pm Networking Reception

Wednesday, May 20, 2026

8:00 – 9:00 am Check-in and Welcome Breakfast

9:00 – 10:15 am
Ensuring Grid Reliability & System Resilience
• Approaches to reducing outage frequency/duration
• Grid-hardening approaches for climate-related impacts
• Advanced fault detection, isolation & service restoration

Adam Effrein — Vice President, Entergy
Aaron Snyder — Director of Grid Technology Consulting, EnerNex
Laura Manz, Principal and Owner, L J Manz Consulting

10:15 – 10:45 am – Networking Coffee Break

10:45 – 12:00 pm
DER, Inverter-Based Resources & Load Flexibility
• Technical impacts of high-penetration DERs
• Grid-forming inverter capabilities & operational considerations
• Virtual power plants (VPPs) in a modernized grid
• Strategies for successful transportation electrification & managed charging

Julieta Giraldez — Director of Integrated Grid Planning, Electric Power Engineers
Mark Evlyn — Director II. Advanced Energy, D.E.R, Resiliency, Grid Solutions, TRC Companies
Kevin Cornish — Director, Distribution Automation, Qualus

12:00 – 1:00 pm – Lunch

1:00 – 2:15 pm
Microgrids & Local Resilience Systems
• Microgrid control & islanding stability
• Protection coordination in microgrid/DER-dense systems
• Industrial, campus & community microgrid case studies

Ben Kroposki — Director, Power Systems Engineering Center, NREL
Scott Higgins — Microgrid Solution Program Director at Schneider Electric
Chris Thompson — Vice President, Advanced Technology & Global Microgrids, Vertiv

2:15 – 2:45 pm – Networking Coffee Break

2:45 – 3:45 PM
Energy Storage Advances and Integration
• Siting, sizing & grid-support functions
• Modeling & forecasting for operations
• Protection, fire safety, codes & compliance
• Utility-scale storage technology advances and deployment case studies

Mahdi Motalleb, PhD — Senior Director of Energy Storage & Electrical Engineering, SB Energy
JD Brannock — Senior Director -- Development, Strata Clean Energy
Aaron Nutt — Director of BESS & Infrastructure, Carey International Group, LLC

3:55 – 5:00 pm
Data, Digitalization, AI & Advanced Analytics in the Evolving Grid
• Digital twin architectures (distribution & transmission)
• Predictive analytics for asset management & reliability
• Advanced analytics and AI for enhanced cybersecurity
• AMI 2.0 data management & analytics workflows

Cindy Hoffman — Director, Enterprise Data Strategy, Governance & Analytics at Xcel Energy
Shane Powell, PE — Director, Power Delivery Data Analytics at Southern Company