Education

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.

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