Technical and Academic Activities

Noel N. Schulz is the Bob Ferguson Endowed Professor at the Washington State University Tri-Cities. In August of 2023, she was named the Inaugural Director of WSU’s new Institute for Northwest Energy Futures (INEF), headquartered on the WSU Tri-Cities campus. Dr. Schulz has been active for over 30 years in teaching, research and service at six U.S. universities including Virginia Tech, University of North Dakota, Michigan Tech, Mississippi State University, Kansas State University and Washington State University.  She has held endowed at three universities.  She has a joint appointment at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) as a Chief Scientist.

In research and graduate studies related to electric power engineering research, she has graduated 45 MS and 16 PhD students; published over 200 papers and 2 book chapters; and brought in over $40M in external research through individual and collaborative projects including a U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER award. She was the US administrative lead for the US Department of Energy funded $30M project, US-India Collaborative for Smart Distribution System with Storage (UI-ASSIST), involving 16 US partners and 15 Indian partners.    She is a Fellow of IEEE and the American Society for Engineering Education and a member of the Washington Academy of Sciences.  

In addition to her technical activities, Dr. Schulz has been very involved in activities related to the recruitment, retention and advancement of women students and professionals in STEM fields.  She received the IEEE HP Harriet B. Rigas Award in 2014 and was recognized in 2023 as the inaugural IEEE Women in Technology and Leadership Award recipient. She is also an advocate for advancing power engineering workforce.