ARROW SEA 2026 Educates 125 Participants on the Challenges, Complexities, and Benefits of Offshore Wind

Content

The Academic Center for Reliability and Resilience of Offshore Wind (ARROW) at UMass Amherst recently organized and hosted a four-day event called ARROW-SEA 2026 (Summer Education Accelerator), which educated more than 125 faculty and students from 16 universities – including those from UMass Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, and Lowell – on the study, challenges, uses, intricacies, and advantages of offshore wind farms. 

The event, centered in New Bedford, Massachusetts, also attracted many industry representatives and featured inspiring and enlightening presentations from Benjamin Downing, new CEO of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), Jennifer Downing, executive director of the New Bedford Ocean Cluster, and many other experts on offshore wind. 

ARROW is composed of eight academic institutions, three national labs, and dozens of industry partners, all led by UMass Amherst and directed by Professor Sanjay Arwade of the UMass Amherst Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. ARROW’s mission is to educate the next generation of professional offshore wind workers and deliver innovations that reduce costs and increase benefits to consumers.

Zoe Getman-Pickering, Ph.D. – the ARROW program director and program coordinator for the ELEVATE program – said that MassCEC and the Maryland Energy Administration funded the program overall, and the National Wildlife Federation organized and paid for tours of offshore wind farms in Massachusetts and Rhode Island waters. As she exclaimed, “It was incredibly inspiring. Many of the faculty and students who study offshore wind had never actually seen offshore turbines and substations in person!”

ARROW SEA 2026 was jam-packed with educational, enlightening, and practical programs combined with first-hand tours and demonstrations. Beyond the tours of operating wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the participants spent a morning at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), located on Clark’s Cove in New Beford. 

According to Getman-Pickering, “Huge thanks to [SMAST Dean] Kevin Stokesbury, [SMAST Interim Assistant Dean for Operations] Kyle Cassidy, and the incredible SMAST faculty and students for hosting us and sharing their expertise on the innovative environmental-monitoring work happening at SMAST, including fisheries-monitoring methods, whale-behavior and whale-migration research, ecosystem connectivity, and everything you ever wanted to know about scallops.”

In one of the many illuminating lectures, Postdoctoral Research Associate Ike Uri from the Riccio College of Engineering “shared a compelling framework for energy justice and challenged us to think more deeply about how offshore wind companies engage with the fishing communities and coastal waters where projects are developed,” as Getman-Pickering explained. One focus of his talk was about incorporating better and more complete feedback from the fishing community during the permitting and siting process.

Getman-Pickering said that “We also heard from UMass Dartmouth Professor of Public Policy Michael Goodman about lessons from the Vineyard Wind project and its impact on economic development in Massachusetts. Offshore wind is already creating thousands of high-quality union jobs and major investment opportunities.”

In addition, the event featured multiple sessions about drone use related to offshore wind farms. Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering Christopher Niezrecki from UMass Lowell walked participants through the technology of drone imaging and data analysis. Assistant Research Professor Christopher Rillahan of UMass Dartmouth took participants to a local pier to demonstrate autonomous underwater vehicles. Senior Marine Engineer Sarah McElman from Metocean Expert Americas spoke about how industries use drones to collect metocean data. Lead Strategic Specialist Greg DeCelles from Ørsted discussed industry drone use and, believe it or not, “cod vocalizations.” And Associate Professor Alessandro Sabato and his team from UMass Lowell guided participants through the art, science, and sport of drone racing.

Beyond all the instructive events listed above, there were also lessons on the complicated hydrodynamic physics and mathematics of offshore wind farms, student presentations of their research, poster sessions, social meals, and too many other features to mention here.