UMass Amherst Offshore Wind Energy Center Shows Graduate Student Posters

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DATE:        Thursday, April 26
TIME:         5-7 p.m.
WHAT:       Offshore Wind Energy Program annual student poster session
WHERE:    Hadley Room, 10th Floor, Campus Center

The 21 posters this year represent an interdisciplinary look at the engineering, environmental and policy aspects of offshore wind energy, says program manager Jody Lally. Student research topics include an ultrasonic whistle for use as a bat deterrent on wind turbines, for example, and a model of breeding bald eagles in Maine.

Other posters discuss such factors as what the public thinks about offshore wind energy, design of floating offshore wind farms, overcoming environmental permitting obstacles, offshore energy storage and the response of juvenile lemon sharks to electric fields produced by a power cable across a tidal mangrove creek.

There will be light refreshments, a cash bar and the opportunity to speak informally with students and faculty about their wind energy research.

At UMass Amherst, the Offshore Wind Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program started in 2011 and has supported 33 Ph.D. students pursuing degrees in six departments and three colleges across campus.

The IGERT program was started in 1997 by the National Science Foundation and has supported interdisciplinary graduate education spanning science, technology, engineering, mathematics and social sciences at more than 125 sites. Among other goals, it seeks to establish creative new models for graduate education and training in an environment conducive to collaborative research beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries and to foster greater diversity in student participation and preparation.