About

Jessica Boles is the Chenming Hu Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and Co-Director of the Berkeley Power and Energy Center. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in electrical engineering. Her research focuses on power electronics, encompassing power electronic components, circuits, control, and applications. Currently, she is pursuing a new class of power electronics based on piezoelectric passive components aimed at enabling significant advances in the performance, size, and cost of power conversion for a wide variety of electronic and energy systems. Boles has been recognized with several prestigious awards including the ARPA-E IGNIITE Award, the NASA Early Career Faculty Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and the UCOP Early Career Faculty Research Excellence Award. Her work has also earned three IEEE prize paper awards and the IEEE PELS Ph.D. Thesis Talk Award. Additionally, she has received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the MIT Collamore-Rogers Fellowship, the UT Knoxville Bodenheimer Fellowship, the MIT EECS Department Head Special Recognition Award, and the UT Knoxville Chancellor's Citation for Professional Promise.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Electronic engineering
• Electrical engineering
• Physics
• Engineering
• Computer Science
• Acoustics
• Optoelectronics
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• High-Efficiency Isolated Piezoelectric Transformers for Magnetic-less DC-DC Power Conversion

  IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics · 2026-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Closed-Loop Control of Symmetric Switching Sequences for Piezoelectric-Resonator-Based DC-DC Converters

  IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Piezoelectric Resonators (PRs) are promising alternative passive components for power conversion, offering high power density, high efficiency, and the opportunity to replace bulky inductors. Previous research has demonstrated their utilization, performance, and benefits in power converters, but straightforward approaches for the closed-loop control of such designs are limited. In this paper, we propose a simplified feedback control strategy for PR-based dc-dc converters based on symmetric, eight-stage switching sequences. We validate the proposed control scheme in a 400 kHz experimental prototype, for which we present the start-up transient, load step responses and efficiency trajectories. The proposed control scheme demonstrates promising performance, paving the way for practical implementation of PR-based dc-dc power conversion.

  PublisherDOI

• Differential Power Processing Using a Multi-port Piezoelectric Component

  2026-03-22

  articleSenior author

  Single-port piezoelectric resonators and two-port piezoelectric transformers have demonstrated strong potential as alternative passive components for power conversion. However, their utility is inherently limited to single-input single-output power conversion applications. In this work, we propose a magnetic-less differential power processing (DPP) architecture that leverages a multi-port piezoelectric component. We provide the modeling framework for the multi-port piezoelectric component and the DPP architecture. We co-design the converter and the component to achieve soft charging of the port capacitances, zero voltage switching (ZVS) of all switches, and all-positive power transfer from input port(s) to output port(s) for a wide load range. The proposed converter-component-coupled design framework for multi-port piezoelectric components and DPP converters are validated experimentally in a three-port DPP converter.

  PublisherDOI

• Modeling and Analysis of Piezoelectric-Resonator-Based Power Converters with Finite Terminal Capacitance

  2026-03-22

  articleSenior author

  Piezoelectric components are promising alternative passive components for power conversion and have been demonstrated with high power density and efficiency. However, piezoelectric-based dc-dc converters often employ large terminal capacitors to ensure near-constant terminal voltage, which reduce their system-level power density advantages. In this paper, we model and analyze the effect of finite terminal capacitance on the performance of piezoelectric-based dc-dc converters, and we experimentally verify the modeled efficiency trends. We anticipate that the proposed model will enable piezoelectric-based power converter designers to size terminal capacitances for maximum power density without significant reduction in efficiency.

  PublisherDOI

• An Overtone-Reconfigurable Piezoelectric-Based Power Converter for Wide Load Range Applications

  2026-03-22

  articleSenior author

  Piezoelectric components are promising alternative passive components for power conversion, but their highest efficiencies are limited to a narrow load range. In this work, we propose a converter topology capable of reconfiguring a single piezoelectric resonator (PR) between different vibration modes to achieve high efficiency across a wide load range. We further model the PR’s efficiency in this converter while operating in either its fundamental vibration mode or in one of its overtones. We experimentally validate the proposed topology and efficiency model using a 2<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">nd</sup>-overtone radial-mode piezoelectric resonator to achieve a load range of 7.5-100% with a power stage efficiency of greater than 95% and a peak efficiency of 99.2%. Thus, we demonstrate that the proposed overtone-reconfigurable converter extends the opportunity of PR-based power conversion to applications requiring high performance across wide load ranges.

  PublisherDOI

• Approachable Modeling of Multi-port Piezoelectric Components for Power Conversion

  2025-06-22 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Piezoelectric components have emerged as compelling alternative passive components for power electronics, with single-port piezoelectric resonators having demonstrated both high efficiency and high power density. However, numerous power electronics applications will require multi-port piezoelectric components, such as piezoelectric transformers, but modeling of multi-port components is complex and requires cumbersome derivations. In this paper, we derive a circuit model for multi-port piezoelectric components and provide multiple straightforward strategies for obtaining its model parameters. The proposed modeling strategy for multi-port piezoelectric components is validated experimentally for a 3-port radial-mode piezoelectric component.

  PublisherDOI

• Overtone Piezoelectric Transformers for Magnetic-less Power Conversion

  2025-06-22 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Piezoelectric transformers (PTs) have emerged as promising alternative passive components for power conversion, offering high efficiency and high energy densities with galvanic isolation and/or inherent voltage transformation. However, the maximum efficiencies of PT-based converters have been limited to applications characterized by high load impedances, thereby confining their utility to a narrow subset of power electronics. In this work, we propose use of overtones (i.e., higher-order resonant modes) in isolated PTs to extend their high-efficiency performance to significantly lower load impedances. We first present a modeling and design framework for overtone PTs. Then, we experimentally validate PT designs based on 1<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">st</sup>, 2<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">nd</sup>, and 3<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">rd</sup> overtones in a dc-dc converter prototype that demonstrates a peak efficiency of ≥ 96 % with a 2.4x, 5.7x, and 9.1x reduction in maximum-efficiency load impedance, respectively, compared to fundamental-mode PT-based converters.

  PublisherDOI

• High-Efficiency Isolated Piezoelectric Transformers for Magnetic-less DC-DC Power Conversion

  2025-03-16 · 8 citations

  articleSenior author

  Piezoelectric components are promising alternative passive components for power conversion, offering high efficiency and high energy densities at small scales. In this paper, we model, design, and demonstrate isolated piezoelectric transformers (PTs) capable of high efficiencies and galvanic isolation as primary passive components in magnetic-less dc-dc converters. We present a design framework for radial mode PTs that enables them to simultaneously achieve peak efficiency and zero voltage switching in a power converter at a specified operating point. The proposed PT design strategy is validated in a dc-dc converter prototype that demonstrates efficiencies of >97% at multiple voltage levels. The converter achieves a peak efficiency of 97.6%, which represents a 17x reduction in loss ratio compared to previous isolated magnetic-less PT-based dc-dc converter designs.

  PublisherDOI

• A Piezoelectric-Resonator-Based “Active Inductor”

  2024-06-24 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Piezoelectric components have emerged as compelling alternative passive components for power electronics, but they cannot be used as drag-and-drop replacements for magnetic components. In this work, we explore how a piezoelectric component may be leveraged to directly emulate the dynamics of a magnetic component, creating an “active inductor”. This approach preserves the power density and efficiency of piezoelectrics while simplifying the design complexity associated with piezoelectric-based power converters. We present a detailed model and control strategy for the proposed piezoelectric-based active inductor, and we demonstrate its use in a classic buck converter. The active inductor is validated with closed-loop simulation results and open-loop experimental results in a 15 W, 50 to 35 V buck converter,confirming its inductor-like behavior.

  PublisherDOI

• Phase-Shift Voltage Regulation of DC-DC Converters Based on Piezoelectric Resonators

  2024-06-24 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Piezoelectric Resonators (PRs) are promising alter-native passive components for power conversion, offering high power density, high efficiency, and the opportunity to replace bulky inductors. Previous research has demonstrated their uti-lization, performance, and benefits in power conversion, but straightforward approaches for the closed-loop control of such designs are limited. In this paper, we propose a simplified closed-loop control strategy for PR-based dc-dc converters using a symmetric, eight-stage switching sequence with phase-shift-based voltage regulation. To accompany the control scheme, we likewise derive a dynamic model for controlling the output voltage, which we validate in Matlab-Simulink. We further validate the proposed control scheme in an experimental prototype, for which we present the start-up transient and output voltage responses.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Leon M. Tolbert

  University of Tennessee at Knoxville

  22 shared

• Jared A. Baxter

  University of Tennessee at Knoxville

  16 shared

• Timothy A. Burress

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  16 shared

• Burak Ozpineci

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  16 shared

• David J. Perreault

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  16 shared

• Jeffrey H. Lang

  11 shared

• Curt W. Ayers

  National Transportation Research Center

  8 shared

• Joshua J. Piel

  U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Sensors Directorate

  6 shared

Labs

• Boles LabPI

Awards & honors

• ARPA-E IGNIITE Award
• NASA Early Career Faculty Award
• NSF CAREER Award
• IEEE prize paper awards
• IEEE PELS Ph.D. Thesis Talk Award