
Muhammad Syahman Samhan
PhD candidate at UNSW Sydney, Australia
Samhan is an Industry PhD candidate at UNSW Sydney, working in partnership with Ausgrid, an electricity distribution network service provider in Sydney. He is supported by a University International Postgraduate Award (UIPA) from UNSW Sydney and receives additional support from Ausgrid, RACE for 2030 and the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub.
His research sits at the intersection of data science and renewable energy. He develops open-source tools to benchmark net-load forecasting models, detect reverse power flow sign errors, estimate the impact of new tariff structures and forecast minimum demand. These tools help network planners integrate more solar without overbuilding infrastructure. He won the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition at the UNSW School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering.
Samhan has experience working and studying in several countries. His work has been accepted for presentation at international IEEE PES conferences in New Zealand, China and Tasmania. He completed his first internship in South Korea, joined a student exchange program in Japan and has volunteered in remote Papua and rural Fiji.
Before starting his PhD, Samhan worked as a Solar Project Engineer at AGL. He holds a BSc (Cum Laude, Best Graduate) in Physics from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, and an MEngSc in Solar Energy Engineering (with Excellence) from UNSW Sydney. He also holds the Databricks Certified Data Analyst Associate and Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional certifications, is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and has passed Level II of the CFA Program. In addition, he was selected for the Consulting Leadership Development Program at McKinsey & Company.
In his free time, Samhan loves learning languages. In addition to English, he speaks three other languages and is currently learning two more.
