National Engineers Week: Meet Fady Soliman
At Avangrid, we’re accelerating transformation for our customers and communities by pioneering a brighter energy future. In honor of National Engineers Week, we are highlighting the brilliant minds behind the innovations we’re making. Meet Fady Soliman, Distribution Planning Associate Engineer at United Illuminating.
What is your current role?
Distribution Planning Associate Engineer. I develop and use power system models and tools for studying the interconnection of generation, storage, and new load additions to the distribution network according to IEEE and ANSI standards to ensure the reliability and efficiency of the grid.
What made you pursue engineering and why did you choose the energy industry?
I pursued Engineering because it quenches my thirst for solving real-life problems through creative and innovative solutions that improve lives, one problem at a time. I believe that advances in engineering are the driving force behind progress in every other field, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. I chose the energy industry specifically because it is not only the fastest growing and most critical sector, but also the foundation that enables all other industries to advance at their intended pace. Without reliable energy, growth in any other sector would be impossible.
What drew you to Avangrid?
Avangrid is amazing in so many ways. Just to name a few of the things I like, Avangrid offers: the commitment to talent acquisition and retention that enables fast career growth and opens tons of opportunities with a people-first approach, the ease of mobility to other positions whether in the U.S. or abroad, the endless learning and growth opportunities whether offered internally or paid for by the company to external providers, and the diverse workforce that makes every employee feel included and welcome.
Can you share an example of a project or idea you have been working on that you believe will shape the energy future in a positive way? Or that you’re particularly proud of?
I am currently working on an initiative to automate the data collection, analysis and storage of substation and circuit related data. Currently, these processes are done in manual and tedious methods, but my project will work on reducing the human intervention and thus eliminating human error in dealing with large datasets, as well as increase data integrity, availability, and reliability for our processes. This will, in turn, improve our turnaround time and enable us to offer a better service to our customers, while providing more business insights that are not currently available.
What aspects of your work as an engineer do you find most rewarding and why?
As my role in distribution planning involves working on the early phases of a project, sometimes as early as the proof-of-concept stage, seeing an idea that I helped develop get implemented in real life is incredibly rewarding. It’s like nurturing a small idea and watching it grow into a significant project that benefits the community or the private sector. Watching this transformation as it happens, while knowing I enabled it to happen, is truly satisfying.
What is unique, special, or interesting about your job?
One thing I find interesting about my job is that it is often less challenging to find a solution, and more challenging to choose the best one among many options. I am sometimes faced with situations that require very careful and thorough discussions and decision-making not to come up with a solution, but to select the most suitable one, as each option can lead to different outcomes.
What advice do you have for young people interested in pursuing a career in engineering?
My advice for young engineers is to stay curious and embrace new challenges. Unlike other occupations, Engineering is unique in that it presents new and different obstacles every day, some of which might not be resolvable using traditional and known methods. In such situations, it’s our duty as engineers to think creatively, collaborate together, and approach this with a mindset of “How can I approach it?” rather than “Could it even be done?”
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