Marija D. Ilić (born 1951) is a Serbian‑American electrical engineer whose research focuses on the control, operation, and pricing of large‑scale electric power systems. She is professor emerita of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, a senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a senior staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Ilić also founded New Electricity Transmission Software, serving as its chief scientist.
Education
- Engineering diploma (1974) and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (1977) – University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
- Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in Systems Science and Mathematics – Washington University in St. Louis, 1980.
Academic and Professional Career
- Assistant professor, Cornell University (1982).
- Tenured associate professor, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (1984‑1989).
- Senior research scientist, MIT LIDS (from 1987).
- Full professor, Carnegie Mellon University, with joint appointments in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy (2002‑2016).
- Visiting professor and senior scientist at MIT after retirement from Carnegie Mellon (2016 onward).
Research Contributions
Ilić’s work includes hierarchical and distributed control architectures for electric grids, market‑based pricing mechanisms, and the dynamics of large power systems. She has coauthored several influential books, such as Hierarchical Power Systems Control (1996) and Dynamics and Control of Large Electric Power Systems (2000).
Honors and Recognitions
- IEEE Fellow (1999) for contributions to hierarchical electric power systems control.
- Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control.
- Member, Academia Europaea (2020).
- Member, National Academy of Engineering (2021) for advances in power‑system analysis and control.
- Honorary chaired professorship at Delft University of Technology.
Ilić’s career spans academia, government research laboratories, and industry collaborations, establishing her as a leading authority in modern electric power system engineering.
