His research interests include dependable distributed computing and design of new kinds of middleware. He has been working closely with WSU’s power researchers for 14 years to help fundamentally rethink grid communications. Bakken is the Chief Architect of the GridStat project and is involved with the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI), specifically its emerging NASPInet initiative. His research is partly on the availability component of cyber security: real-time, wide-area data delivery for power grids. He is also working with Hauser on security technologies to help secure GridStat’s data delivery plane and its management plane. Bakken will be co-chair of the symposium on wide-area protection and control (WAMPAC) at IEEE SmartGridComm 2012.