Shyamal Patel is a Senior Technical Consultant at Hitachi Energy. He has more than seven years of research and consulting experience in distribution grid planning with high penetration of DERs and EVs. In his current role, he is focused on providing innovative solutions to the utilities to prepare for large-scale EV adoption. His domain expertise includes data-driven fleet identification, load forecasting, distribution grid assessment, and proactive distribution grid planning to address EV charging load requirements. He also has a Ph.D. in data-driven management of distribution grids from UNC Charlotte.