On the morning of April 25, 2018, Prof. Fred Lee, a distinguished professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and lecturer at Tsinghua University, gave an academic report entitled "Modeling and Control of Modular Multi-level Converter (MMC)". The lecture was chaired by Prof. Xiaoxi, Vice-Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. More than 80 teachers and students, including Prof. Huang Lipei, Prof. Li Yongdong, Associate Prof. Yuan Liqiang, Prof. Lu Haifeng and Prof. Yang Geng of the Department of Automation, participated in the lecture. Academician Fred Lee introduced in detail the latest research results of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) Power Electronics Center team in the hot direction of modular multilevel converters, including its state space modeling, energy flow analysis and optimization control methods. After the report, the teachers and students had a warm exchange and discussion with Academician Fred Lee.

Mr. Fred Lee is an outstanding professor of the American National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the Foreign Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Academician of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan, China, and the outstanding of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has been a chair professor of Tsinghua University since 2017. He founded the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES, composed of five universities in the United States) founded by the National Science Foundation United States, long served as the Director in the Center, and has made outstanding achievements in the field of high-frequency power conversion and power electronics systems. He has been awarded certificates by NASA, William Newell Award of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, United States, and Ernst-Blickle Award of the European SEW-Euro Drive Foundation. He acted as Chairman of the IEEE Power Electronics Society and Chairman of many conferences of the International Power Electronics Society.