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Illinois Tech Max McGraw Endowed Chair of Energy and Power Engineering and Management Qing-Chang Zhong has been elected as a for the impact that he has made to academia and industry in advancing autonomous, sustainable, and democratized power systems.

Zhong is being recognized for inventing the synchronized-and-democratized (SYNDEM) architecture by merging synchronization principles in natural sciences and democracy concepts in social sciences and for pioneering virtual synchronous machines (VSM) technologies to revolutionize power systems.  

“I am deeply honored to be elected a fellow of AAAS,” Zhong says. “This recognition affirms the multidisciplinary vision of merging synchronization principles in natural sciences with the concepts of democracy from social sciences to rethink how power systems operate, and of advancing virtual synchronous machines as a foundational pathway toward grid reliability, energy equity, and energy freedom.”

Zhong established the first engineering paradigm for power systems by integrating synchronization principles with the concepts of democracy, effectively bridging natural and social sciences in an integrated engineering framework. Together, the SYNDEM architecture and its enabling VSM established a unified architectural and technological foundation for next-generation resilient power systems through autonomous coordination that emerges directly from local interactions governed by physical laws of synchronization. In contrast to conventional approaches based on communication and centralized control, SYNDEM enables coordination to emerge inherently.

These contributions have reshaped how future power systems are conceived, structured, and operated to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving energy landscape.

One of the world’s largest general scientific societies and the publisher of the journal Science, AAAS has elected fellows since 1874, and AAAS fellows are a distinguished cadre of scientists, engineers, and innovators who are recognized for achievements across disciplines.