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Research Focus:

Computer-aided design and control of synchronous (reluctance, wound-rotor, permanent magnet, flux modulating), and induction machine drives.​


Maarten J. Kamper was born in South Africa. He received the M.Sc. (Eng) and PhD (Eng) degrees from the Stellenbosch University in South Africa, in 1987 and 1996, respectively. He worked for the SA Railways (Johannesburg) from 1986 – 1987 as an assistant engineer. From 1988 – 1989 he worked as a project engineer in the Division for Power Electronics and Electrical Machines at the CSIR (Pretoria). 


In 1989 he joined the Stellenbosch University at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering as a Senior Lecturer, became an Associate Professor in 2001, Full Professor in 2004 and Distinguished Professor in 2020. He acted as Head of Department from 2016 – 2018. He teaches electrical machines, power electronics and electrical drives, and focuses on his research on electrical machine design, variable speed drives, generator systems, electrical vehicles and renewable energy applications. Prof Kamper is a registered Professional Engineer and a B3 NRF-rated researcher in South Africa. He currently acts as grand holder of the DSI-Wind Energy Spoke of the renewable-hub at the Stellenbosch University on wind energy technologies. He is a senior member of the IEEE and acted as Associate Editor of the Electric Machine Committee of the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications from 2014 – 2016. Prof Kamper also serves on the steering committee of the International Conference on Electrical Machines (ICEM).


Prof Kamper authored and co-authored more than 200 research publications that include 61 journal publications and more than 100 international conference publications. He supervised 62 completed postgraduate-studies that include 17 PhD studies. He is co-author of the textbook: Jacek F. Gieras, Rong-Jie Wang, Maarten J. Kamper, "Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Brushless Machines", 2nd Edition, Springer, 2008. He received a first prize paper award for his paper: JHJ Potgieter and MJ Kamper, "Optimum design and technology evaluation of slip PM generators for wind energy applications", presented at the IEEE Energy Conversion Congress & Expo (ECCE) in Raleigh, North Carolina (USA) in 2012. Recently he received the Chancellor's award (Dec 2017) and a Research Excellence award (Dec 2018) from the Stellenbosch University.​


Contact Information:

Office Tel: +27 21 808 4323 • Email: kamper@sun.ac.za • Office no: E311

Address: Dept of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa​​​

​​​​​Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering​: Electrical Machines Laboratory​​​