People

Deborah Greaves is Head of the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, Professor of Ocean Engineering and Director of the COAST Laboratory at the University of Plymouth with previous appointments at Oxford, UCL and the University of Bath.

Her research interests include marine and offshore renewable energy, and physical and numerical modeling of wave-structure interaction. She has led many national and international research projects concerning offshore renewable energy (ORE) in collaboration with industrial and academic partners and in 2017 was appointed by EPSRC as the new ORE Supergen Leader, directing the UK research programme in ORE. She recently published with Wiley an edited book on Wave and Tidal Energy (2018) and in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, 2018, she was awarded an OBE for services to Marine Renewable Energy, Equalities, and Higher Education.

• Sector and Area Champion for: Tidal and Data Management
• Work Package Lead: Integrated Modelling Across Scales

Doctor Tim Stallard is a Reader at the University of Manchester in offshore renewable energy with a particular focus on unsteady loading of systems within arrays (e.g. tidal stream systems, wave devices and wind turbines) and with interests in the assessment of economic viability.

Tim has been Principal or Co-Investigator on several major marine energy projects with net value of >£3M, including EU FP7 Equimar, the ETI PerAWaT, UK-China EPSRC-NEWTON ALLT-Tidal, ETI ReDAPT and the EPSRC Challenge project X-MED. His research also addresses floating body hydrodynamics with interests in wave energy arrays through EU FP7 WECWakes and wave device innovations EPSRC STEP-WEC.

• Sector and Area Champion for: Policy
• Work Package Lead: Sites and Conditions, and Communications and Engagement

Professor David White, at the University of Southampton, has held academic positions at the Universities of Cambridge and Western Australia and works primarily in offshore energy.

His work has attracted >£25M of funding, split between industry and competitive grants, leading to 8 best paper awards. The work has changed engineering practice for offshore infrastructure and mooring systems, with impact on industry design codes (API/ISO) and recommended practices (DNV), including recognition through 9 industry awards. His prior leadership roles include Founding Director of the Australian Research Council Hub for Offshore Floating Facilities as well as UWA’s Shell Chair of Offshore Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

• Sector and Area Champion for: Policy and International
• Work Package Lead: Demonstration of Scenarios

Henry Jeffrey at the University of Edinburgh is a specialist in marine energy roadmaps, action plans and strategies.

He is responsible for dissemination and within the current UK Marine programme. He holds the position of “strategy and internationalisation officer” for “Wave Energy Scotland” and chairs the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) as well as the IEA OES group for Ocean programme. He is the only academic member of the ETI and Renewable UK Marine Strategy Groups. His international collaboration includes Canada, the US, Chile, and Mexico. He is lead of several European marine energy projects including DTOcean.

• Sector and Area Champion for: Early Career Researchers
• Work Package Lead: Early Career Researcher Development

Professor Richard Willden holds an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship in tidal stream energy at the University of Oxford, where he has led fluid mechanics research for tidal and wind turbines for more than ten years (>£5M funded research).

His expertise is in multi-scale analysis and design of rotors for efficient energy extraction, including the development of energy extraction limits for turbine arrays that exploit constructive interference effects. His fellowship, “Tidal Stream Energy – Designing for Performance” is developing rotor array design and supporting methodologies for next-generation high-performance tidal arrays, including large scale laboratory demonstration tests of advanced multi-rotor systems. In wind energy he works with energy utilities to understand and model wake and blockage based wind turbine interactional effects. He was the Oxford Principal Investigator for the ETI PerAWaT project and has involvement in various EPSRC ORE projects.

Professor Willden shares hub duties with Professor Byron Byrne (also of University of Oxford).

• Sector and Area Champion for: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
• Work Package Lead: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Professor James Gilbert has extensive research experience in sensing, modelling and control systems research and in the development of innovative manufacturing processes. He is the Research, Development and Innovation lead for Aura, a collaboration between Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Ørsted, University of Sheffield, Durham University and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. He is Hull PI on the £7.6M EPSRC Prosperity Partnership ‘A New Partnership in Offshore Wind’. He leads industry interaction for the EPSRC/NERC funded CDT in Offshore Wind and the Environment and is UoH lead for the Operations and Maintenance Centre of Excellence, a £2M collaboration between UoH and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult.

Prof Philipp Thies is an Associate Professor Renewable Energy at the University of Exeter with research interests in offshore reliability engineering including component reliability testing, field load evaluation for ORE and statistical reliability methods.

He is Principal Investigator for the Innovate UK project for “Dynamic Load Reduction and Station Keeping Mooring System for Floating Offshore Wind” and has led a Newton Fund UK-China project on novel mooring systems. He acts as Co-Investigator for a GCRF UK-China project, an Innovate UK project and UKCMER. He is responsible for mooring risk assessment in the EU H2020 OPERA project, test activities in the EU H2020 Marinet2 programme and contributes to the IDCORE doctoral programme.

• Sector and Area Champion for: Environment

Professor Beth Scott is a Professor in Marine Ecology. She conducts multi-disciplinary research using her expertise in marine ecology, oceanography and fisheries sciences.

Her research identifies general rules in bio-physical oceanographic processes that lead to the creation of hotspots of biodiversity and predator-prey activity. Specifically, her research group defines biological and physical variables that provide the limited, patchy locations and conditions where energy is transferred across trophic levels in marine food webs. Her research team using approaches ranging from the collection and use of fine scale (second by second) information throughout the water column as well as the analysis of large scale (100s or km) long term data sets on spatial and population dynamics. Both scales of information are also used within simulation modeling methods which are agent based. Recently her research portfolio has been focused on the understanding of the effects of marine renewable energy systems on multi-trophic interactions and the methods for co-developing a Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) decision-support system with a range of stakeholders (industry, government, NGOs, etc.) to better incorporate ecosystem service knowledge and values into effective policies.

• Sector and Area Champion for: Early Career Researchers
• Work Package Lead: Early Career Researcher Development

Professor Byron Byrne is Professor of Engineering Science and Ørsted / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Advanced Geotechnical Design at the University of Oxford.

He leads on research into the geotechnical engineering for offshore wind and other renewable energy structures. He was Principal Investigator for the Carbon Trust / Ørsted / Industry funded PISA project (£4.0M, 2013-2018), which won the BGA’s Fleming Award for 2017, for delivering new design methods for large diameter offshore wind turbine monopiles. He currently leads on the Oxford–Ørsted Framework research project (2018-2023) on cyclic loading for offshore wind foundations. He is Co-Investigator on the EPSRC ALPACA Project (~£1.6M), and also leads on a number of other smaller industry / EPSRC funded projects. He is the Oxford Director, and Co-Investigator, of the Cranfield / Oxford / Strathclyde EPSRC CDT for Renewable Energy Marine Structures (£3.98M), and a Co-Investigator on the new Strathclyde / Oxford / Edinburgh EPSRC CDT for Wind and Marine Energy Systems and Structures. 

Professor Byrne shares hub duties with Professor Richard Willden (also of University of Oxford).

Professor Xiaowei Zhao obtained his PhD in Control Theory from Imperial College London in 2010 and then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Control Engineering Group of the University of Oxford until 2013. After that he joined the University of Warwick where he was awarded a chair in 2018. At Warwick he has established the Intelligent Control & Smart Energy (ICSE) research group which currently includes around 20 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. His main research areas are control theory and machine learning with applications to the offshore renewable energy systems and their grid integration, local smart energy systems, and autonomous systems. He currently has six main research projects (four from EPSRC and two from H2020) in these areas with a total project values of £20 million.

• Sector and Area Champion for: Offshore Wind
• Work Package Lead: Floating Offshore Renewable Energy Structures

Professor Feargal Brennan is Professor of Offshore Engineering at the University of Strathclyde and is currently the Director of the University of Strathclyde Offshore Engineering Institute and is the James Blyth Chair of Offshore Engineering at the Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering.

His research interests are in structural integrity of offshore structures for wind, wave and tidal power, mainly funded by industry (e.g. the Structural Life-Cycle Industry Collaboration - SLIC). He has been directly responsible for winning and delivery of >£20m in engineering research funding (£11.6m as Principal Investigator). He is a Co-Investigator of both Supergen Marine and Supergen Wind hubs and the centre for Advanced Materials for Renewable Energy Generation.  He is a member of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult Research Advisory Board amongst many external appointments. 

Paul joined ORE Catapult (formerly Narec) in August 2006 and holds the post of Head of Strategic Research responsible for research business development, external research collaborations and academic engagement. Previously, Paul occupied the role of Project Coordinator for the OPTIMUS FP7 project (prognostic condition monitoring) and prior to that, he occupied similar roles on the Snapper FP7 project and Aquamarine Power’s Oyster project (both wave energy converter projects). He is currently a Board member of the European Association of Renewable Energy Research Centres (EUREC), a Management Board member of the European Energy Research Alliance Joint Programme for Wind (EERA JPWind) and represents ORE Catapult on the SuperGen Wind Management Committee, the UKCMER Advisory Board and the Durham Energy Institute’s Industrial Advisory Board.

Ross founded Rayner Low Carbon Technologies in 2018 to accelerate the adoption of low carbon technologies, through research, innovation & engineering.

With a career spanning over 22 years, Ross previously was Renewables Director (Asset Performance) for LOC (London Offshore Consultants). Prior to this he joined Lloyd’s Register in 1997 during which time he founded, and was Head of the Renewable Energy business, growing it into a global enterprise with operating facilities across various renewables sectors. He was also a member of the Lloyd’s Register Energy Technology Board between 2011 and 2016. In 2018, Ross was appointed Co-Director and Lead Industrial Partner to the EPSRC Supergen ORE Programme.

Ross has a wealth of experience within the renewables industry and is an advisor to several boards, including Supergen ORE Hub, REMS CDT Programme, ESPRC review panel and was also a member of the IEC / BSI Wind & Marine Energy Standards Committees.

Carolyn’s journey started with Fred Olsen Renewables in 2008 where she held the role of Head of Offshore Development where she had the responsibility to lead the company’s work in offshore wind including site selection and feasibility studies. Carolyn then went to work as Head of Renewables (North America) for Lloyd’s Register, and as Offshore Development Strategy Manager for RES-Group. Prior to these roles, Carolyn held the role of Head of Environment and Sustainable Development for The Crown Estate where she led and managed the first two offshore wind farm leasing rounds in the UK (2001 and 2004) as well as wave and tidal interests.

Whilst at The Crown Estate, Carolyn founded a unique Charitable Trust to fund projects to understand the environmental impacts of offshore wind. The Fund awarded over £3mn to over 20 projects and achieved recognition through the development of standardised methodologies for a range of environmental surveys that now have global application.

Carolyn is currently Chair of the American Wind Energy Association’s Offshore Committee, and has achieved industry recognition in 2017 where she was ranked in the top 100 Women in Wind report (at number 48) demonstrating specific achievements and continued influence in the offshore wind sector. Carolyn hold a BSc (Hons) in Maritime Geography from the University of Wales.

In 1984, Andrew co-founded Garrad Hassan (GH) in Bristol. It grew to become the world’s largest renewable energy consultancy, employing 1,000 people in 29 countries. He became President of GL Garrad Hassan after Germanischer Lloyd (GL) and Garrad Hassan merged in 2009. He ran the new company until 2012, when he became Chairman. After the merger of DNV and GL in 2013, Andrew became a member of the DNV GL Energy Supervisory Board.

Andrew has been professionally involved in wind, wave and tidal energy for over four decades. He built his first wind turbine in 1971. From 2013 to 2014 he was President of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) and he is a past-Chairman of the British Wind Energy Association. He chaired Bristol’s year as European Green Capital in 2015. In 2006, he became the first British recipient of EWEA’s Poul la Cour prize, and in 2015, he became the only non-Greek recipient of the Hellenic Wind Energy Association’s Aeolus prize. Under his leadership, GH twice won the Queen’s Award for International Enterprise. He is an Honorary Fellow of New College, Oxford.

Lee Richards, as the Supergen ORE Hub Manager, oversees the operational and delivery activities of the Hub and leads and directs the workflow of the Supergen ORE Hub team. This includes developing and promoting the Hub at events and conferences, supporting the Co-Director leads with all non-research based activities, managing the Supergen ORE Hub Flexible Fund allocation through a transparent and trusted process, managing funding, budgeting and reporting requirements and liaising between the Hub Co-Directors, Advisory Board, Research Alignment Group and Research Council Funder. Prior to the Supergen ORE Hub, Lee spent 10 years within the renewable energy sector at Regen SW, supporting the development and delivery of programmes to support the wider renewable energy industry in the UK, both within the onshore and offshore renewable energy sectors. This was followed by two years as Senior Research Manager at the University of Plymouth, delivering a range of targeted research projects to Government Departments, third sector organisations, industry stakeholders and academic institutions.

Barbara is the Administrator for the Supergen ORE Hub. Drawing on her experience of 22 years’ experience supporting senior members of staff at the University of Plymouth, and background in the private banking sector, Barbara is responsible for the assisting with the financial and administrative processes of the Hub. This includes assisting with the management of funding and budgets, organising meetings, and supporting the team with event logistics. Barbara’s City and Guild Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health ensures adequate risk assessments and safety procedures are in place for conferences, visits and trips. Barbara holds a BSc (Hons) in Politics from the University of Plymouth, and is passionate about supporting equality, diversity and inclusion.

Kirsty is responsible for the Hub Communications and Engagement Strategy, developing our communication channels and creating content to keep our audiences informed and engaged. This includes assisting with developments and content creation for the website, delivering outreach and engagement events, managing our social media channels, and sharing news and opportunities with our network.

Siya Jin is a PDRA at University of Plymouth. Her research focuses on developing and validating methods and tools for wave characterisation, and for physical and numerical modelling of wave-ORE structure interaction that can be used to predict critical load cases for ORE structures.

Rachel is a postdoctoral researcher investigating dynamic submarine power cables for the floating offshore wind industry. Rachel is a Chartered Engineer with experience in the marine renewable energy and yacht design sectors. Her key areas of expertise are composite technology, offshore renewables, fluid structure interactions and novel vessel design.

Katherine’s research aims to improve the foundation design for offshore floating renewable energy structures. Katherine uses her background in geotechnical engineering to integrate the ‘whole-life’ seabed-soil response into anchor and mooring system analyses. This will unlock design efficiencies that result in more cost-effective foundation systems and will lead to a better understanding of the coupled soil-anchor-mooring behaviour of offshore renewable energy infrastructure over its operational lifetime.

Dr Neda Trifonova is a marine ecologist with a computer science background and her expertise is in the application of machine learning techniques such as Bayesian networks to investigate marine ecosystem dynamics and their changes throughout spatial and temporal scales with respect to climate change and marine renewables.

Mustafa Abdelrahman has a B.Sc. And M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Assiut University, Assiut Egypt, obtained in 2003 and 2014, respectively. Mustafa got his PhD in May 2019, from Hull University, UK. Currently, Mustafa is a post-doctoral researcher within the Supergen ORE Hub at Hull University. His research interests include Wave Energy and Floating Wind Energy applications and Robust Control and Estimation.

Dr Bhavsar has expertise in the development of sensors, nanomaterials and spectroscopy. His current research interest and experience involves the development of fibre optic sensors, surface plasmon resonance sensors, synthesis of metal/metal oxide nanomaterials and surface analysis and modifications for various biomedical, environmental-monitoring, oil & gas industry and renewable energy applications.