Irina Ciornei-Apostu is a Research Fellow at KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence. She holds a BSc (2002) in Power Engineering from the Technical University of Iassy, Romania, an two MSc (2003) in Energy and Environment, one from the University of Poitiers, France and one from the Technical University of Iassy, and a PhD (2011) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cyprus, with a thesis entitled “Novel hybrid optimization methods for the solution of the economic dispatch of generation in power systems”. Between 2003 and 2006 she worked as a research assistant at the Technical University of Iasi, where she was involved on a number of feasibility studies for energy producers. At the last quarter of 2008 she was a visiting researcher at VTT Finland were she carried out a study on wind integration in Cyprus. Her expertise covers a wide range of heuristic optimization techniques (such as genetic algorithms, ant colony algorithms, particle swarm optimization, simulated annealing, and evolutionary computation) and stochastic optimization solutions with applications in power system planning and operation. Her academic interest includes power system operation and control, operation research methods, RES distributed systems, integration of wind generation into the main power grid (reliability and feasibility), electricity market designs and operations. Irina is a member of IEEE, and a member of the Power and Energy Society. In the last quarter of 2011, she served as an IEEE Treasurer for the IEEE PES Student Branch of the University of Cyprus.
