Steering Committee
The Partnership for Research in Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE) is a network of world-class research institutions based in the west, south, and south west of England who undertake research and development to address challenges facing the marine renewable energy industry at the regional, national and international level.
PRIMaRE Chair: Prof. Jun Zang (The University of Bath)
Prof. Jun Zang is a Professor of Coastal and Ocean Engineering and the Deputy Head of Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering. She is also the Deputy Director of Centre for Infrastructure, Geotechnical and Water Engineering (IGWE). She currently chairs the PRIMaRE Partnership for Research in Marine Renewable Energy, she is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering (OMAE) and Frontiers in Marine Science, and an Editorial Board Member of several journals.
Her research addresses key challenges in coastal and ocean engineering for developing offshore renewable energy and improving the resilience and adaptation of coastal areas against extreme wave conditions. She has led/participated in a number of national and international collaborative research projects, which include the development of fast reduced-order engineering models and open-source engineering tools for predicting extreme wave impact on offshore wind turbine foundations, breaking wave impact on coastal protection structures, optimisation and survivability analysis of offshore renewable energy devices, and the development of advanced computational fluid dynamics tools for accurate simulation of violent wave-structure interactions, and coastal & urban flooding.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 384315
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: www.bath.ac.uk/ace/people/zang/
Prof. AbuBakr Bahaj (The University of Southampton)
For more than 25 years, Prof Bahaj has pioneered sustainable energy research within the University directing one of the UK's leading university-based research groups, the Sustainable Energy Research Group, (SERG). The aims of ECCD and SERG are to promote and conduct fundamental and applied research and pre-industrial development in the areas of energy technologies, improvements in energy efficiency and assess the impact of climate change on buildings. Under the leadership of Prof Bahaj, SERG involvement in ground breaking research projects in the UK, as well as in China, the Middle East and Africa has been pivotal.
As an experienced research team director, Prof Bahaj has initiated and managed research in ocean energy conversion (resources, technologies and impacts), photovoltaics, energy in buildings and impacts of climate change on the built environment, resulting in over 270 published academic articles in journals and conferences of international standing. From 2001 to 2007, Prof Bahaj was a member of the UK’s Department of Business and Regulatory Reform (BERR) Technology Programmes Panels on Water (including ocean energy) and Solar Energy. He is the founder and Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Marine Energy and was the EPSRC appointee on the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Supervisory Board (2005-2010). He is also a member of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission Advisory Board.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 2380 592051
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/bahaj.page
Prof. Nicola Beaumont (Plymouth Marine Laboratory)
Professor Nicola Beaumont leads the Sea and Society team at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and is an internationally established expert in the assessment and valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. She has honorary professorships at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, and the College of Life & Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter. Her research spans scales from local to global, including international development and a variety of environmental challenges, for example: renewable energy, plastics, flood and erosion management, climate change, ocean acidification, and marine planning and policy. She has extensive people and project management experience, with a particular focus on interdisciplinary projects. Nicola has secured and managed >£5 million of research funding as PI, including leading three large (£1million+) multi-institute collaborative projects. Nicola has a sustained publication record and has contributed to a number of high level reports, including acting as the lead economist for marine and coastal margins for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA).
Nicola’s research has recorded impact in the policy sphere, including underpinning the designation of marine conservation zones and shaping government policy such as the Marine Bill and the Natural Environment White Paper, The Natural Choice: securing the value of nature. Nicola is skilled in research communication including working with academics, policy makers, managers and varied research user groups. She embraces outreach and media, including festival related STEM activities, YouTube, and interviews with radio, newspaper and television. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is of paramount importance to Nicola and she is experienced in the development and implementation of EDI strategies. As a senior academic Nicola draws on her people management skills to support and guide numerous teams, colleagues, and students, including formal and informal mentoring.
Since completing his PhD, he has gained extensive experience in modelling marine renewable energy devices, both numerically and physically in the COAST Laboratory. This experience was obtained through a number of research projects in collaboration with industrial and academic partners, and included studies of floating tidal platforms; flexible and rigid point absorbers; and oscillating flap-type wave energy converters.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0)1752 633100
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: https://www.pml.ac.uk/People/Professor-Nicola-Beaumont
Dr. Philippe Blondel (The University of Bath)
Deputy Director of the Centre for Space, Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Dr. Philippe Blondel is an expert in remote sensing, primarily underwater acoustics, and its applications to environmental and engineering issues. In the context of marine renewable energies, he has worked on acoustic imaging of the environment around tidal turbines and wave-energy converters at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC, Orkney, UK), as part of the NERC FLOWBEC-4D project (in close collaboration with the University of Aberdeen and National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool). He has also investigated ambient noise in many environments, including the FaBTest site in Falmouth Bay (UK) (with the University of Exeter) and Arctic glaciers (with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Gdansk and the Polish Academy of Science), as well as Acoustic Emissions from wave-energy converters (NERC-GW4 project AEMORE, with the University of Exeter). Recent research includes monitoring human impacts on ambient noise underwater, with EPSRC, NERC and InnovateUK funding, and the use of machine learning and high-performance computing to analyse very large datasets. Philippe Blondel also works with active sonars, and his latest textbooks are available on Amazon.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 385237
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: www.bath.ac.uk/physics/contacts/academics/philippe_blondel/
Dr. Scott Brown (University of Plymouth)
Scott is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Coastal Engineering Research Group within the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics at the University of Plymouth, whose primary research interests include marine renewable energy; computational fluid dynamics and physical modelling of two-phase free surface flows; wave-structure interaction; and turbulence generation. His PhD, obtained at University of Plymouth, focused on turbulence generation and sediment transport processes in the coastal zone using open source computational fluid dynamics, building upon knowledge gained in his MMath degree achieved at the University of Exeter.
Since completing his PhD, he has gained extensive experience in modelling marine renewable energy devices, both numerically and physically in the COAST Laboratory. This experience was obtained through a number of research projects in collaboration with industrial and academic partners, and included studies of floating tidal platforms; flexible and rigid point absorbers; and oscillating flap-type wave energy converters.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1752 584952
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/scott-brown
Dr Andrea Diambra (The University of Bristol)
Dr Andrea Diambra is a Senior Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering at University of Bristol. Andrea has a strong research interest on foundation systems for offshore energy renewable devices (wind, wave and tidal). His research activities include both numerical and experimental activities. Andrea has been working in a variety of collaborative research projects to investigate the long term cyclic response of mono and jacket piled wind farms, to model the cyclic performance of anchoring systems for offshore renewable floating devices and to investigate the cyclic interface response between polypropylene pipelines or cables and seabed sediments. Andrea is also regularly involved in offshore industrial consultancy projects.
Before joining the University Bristol, Andrea has been an engineering consultant at MottMacDonald Ltd. Andrea has also competed a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering at University of Bristol in 2010.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1173 315600
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: www.bristol.ac.uk/engineering/people/andrea-diambra/index.html
Prof. Deborah Greaves (The University of Plymouth)
Deborah Greaves is Head of the School of Engineering, Professor of Ocean Engineering and Director of the COAST (Coastal, Ocean and Sediment Transport) Laboratory at the University of Plymouth, with previous appointments at UCL and the University of Bath. Her research interests include physical and numerical modelling 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. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers and has secured £9.3 million research income. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a member of the technical committee for EWTEC (European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference).
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1752 586122
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/deborah-greaves
Mr. Stuart Herbert (Wave Hub)
Stuart joined Wave Hub in 2013 to lead negotiations with companies planning to use the test site and identify new business opportunities.
Prior to joining Wave Hub, Stuart worked as commercial and operational manager for the SGS Renewable energy services division and as business development manager for the National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec) in the North East of England, focusing on marine energy device and wind turbine testing.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1736 800290
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Lars Johanning (The University of Exeter)
Lars Johanning has been involved in research on hydrodynamic related topics for marine structures since 1997. His research included studies on hydrodynamic damping and vortex induced vibration on bluff bodies, loading and dynamic response of a mono-tower in steep and breaking waves, and hydrodynamic studies on station keeping principals for marine renewable devices to improve reliability and cost efficient power capture.
Before joining the Renewable Energy Group at the University of Exeter in September 2007 Prof Lars Johanning was a researcher within the EPSRC sponsored Supergen Marine Consortium, where he undertook the research on mooring systems for floating marine energy converter. Within the Renewable Energy Group he is leading the research within the field of hydrodynamics and marine operations, with the main focus on coupled dynamic response of marine energy converter and its station keeping system in respect of safe station keeping and power conversion efficiency.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1326 253730
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: https://emps.exeter.ac.uk/renewable-energy/staff/lj233
Dr. Allan Mason-Jones (Cardiff University)
Allan has 26 years experience using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and the last 10 years combining the later to investigate Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI). Allan has experience using these analysis methods in both industry and academia for both product development and research. My industrial experience was based in the UK and North America where I used FEA and material characterisation to apply and develop constitutive models. My more recent research continues in the field of kinetic energy extraction from the marine environment including tidal stream and offshore wind with funding from EPSRC and government programmes.
Since completing his PhD, he has gained extensive experience in modelling marine renewable energy devices, both numerically and physically in the COAST Laboratory. This experience was obtained through a number of research projects in collaboration with industrial and academic partners, and included studies of floating tidal platforms; flexible and rigid point absorbers; and oscillating flap-type wave energy converters.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 2920 575941
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/364424-mason-jones-allan
Dr. James Waggitt (Bangor University)
James completed a degree in BSc Marine Biology and Coastal Ecology at the University Of Plymouth in 2009, and then an MRes in Marine Biology at the same institute in 2010. My MRes research focussed on northern gannet Morus bassanus foraging ecology, investigating individual differences in foraging distributions and strategies, and was supervised by Dr Steve Votier. James then completed a PhD in Marine Ecology at the University of Aberdeen in 2015. His PhD research investigated deep-diving seabirds’ use of tidal-stream environments with the aim of understanding potential interactions with tidal stream turbines, and was primarily supervised by Dr Beth Scott. During his PhD James was involved in the NERC funded CORPORATES, FLOWBEC and RESPONSE projects which aim to understand environmental impacts from marine renewable energy installations, and also aid marine spatial planning. He joined the School of Ocean Sciences as a research officer within the NERC funded Marine Ecosystems Research Program (MERP) in June 2015. During this project, he worked alongside Dr Peter Evans and Prof Jan Hiddink to map the distributions of numerous cetacean and seabird species across the North-East Atlantic. James became a lecturer in August 2017. In addition to his research at the School, he is a scientific advisor to the Sea Watch Foundation. This NGO is dedicated to the conservation of cetaceans.
Contact details:
Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388767
Email: [email protected]
Personal website: https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/james-waggitt(f2764048-72dc-4188-98a9-61177daa44ae).html
