Education
Meet Our Team
Tom Acker - Chairman of the Board
Tom Acker is a Sr. Principal Engineer in Innovation & Development at the Salt River Project (SRP) Agricultural Improvement and Power District in Phoenix, AZ. SRP is a large public power and water company serving over one million customers in the Phoenix area. He is also President of the board for the Western Energy Futures Institute, a non-profit focused on clean energy education.
Paul Veers – Director
Paul Veers is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Chief Engineer for the National Wind Technology Center.
Bob Thresher – Director Emeritus
Bob Thresher is a Senior Research Fellow Emeritus serving as a mentor and advisor in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Mechanical & Thermal Energy Sciences Directorate.
Luis (Tony) Martinez-Tossas – Conference Committee Chair
Tony is a Research Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (currently on sabbatical working with industry) and has supported NAWEA and the NAWEA/WindTech conferences since 2019.
Suhas Pol – Education Committee Chair
Susan Stewart - Vice-Chair of Education Committee
Susan is a teaching Professor and Assoc. Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Pennsylvania State University
Elizabeth Fountain – Conference Advisor
Jen Turnbill – Communications Advisor
To get involved with the North American Wind Energy Academy’s (NAWEA’s) Education Initiative, contact any of the Curriculum Committee members:
Jim Manwell (Chair), University of Massachusetts Amherst | Wind Energy Center
Tom Acker, Northern Arizona University | Clean Energy Research and Education
Carlos Simao Ferreira, Delft University of Technology | TUDelft Wind Energy
Jonathan Miles, James Madison University | Office for the Advancement of Sustainable Energy
Jonathan Naughton, University of Wyoming
Ganesh Rajagopalan, Iowa State University
Susan Stewart, Penn State University
Andy Swift, Texas Tech University | Texas Tech University National Wind Institute
Education Priorities
- Establish a Wind Energy Education Science and Technology Advisory Group from member universities
- Develop a certification program that applies a NAWEA-defined quality rating to member academic courses and programs
- Develop educational standards across courses and degrees
- Consolidate courses, improve course mobility, and enhance cooperation across member universities
- Increase the involvement of multiple disciplines in course curricula
- Track and publish member university programs and core competencies
- Build a strong wind energy community from wind energy alumni.
Education Programs
WindU: A Multi-University Consortium in Wind Energy Graduate Education
An NSF-funded program led by Tom Acker at Northern Arizona University and NAWEA Curriculum Committee members at Texas Tech, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Penn State
Purpose: Establish an expandable, multi-university consortium focused on graduate education in wind energy that will:
- Enhance and expand the educational opportunities available to students in an emerging professional, STEM field, including international experiences;
- Increase the diversity of peoples and disciplines represented by students enrolled in wind energy graduate programs; and,
- Address a pressing national need for graduate-education-trained wind energy professionals.
Objectives: To pilot and test the new, innovative, Rapid model, to effectively establish a replicable, expandable, consortium in graduate education. The Rapid model is a new facilitational model developed from evidence-based models described in the literature and implemented in practice.