Meet Michael—a passionate Naval Architect & Ocean Engineer and a seasoned Project Management Professional (PMP®) with extensive offshore wind industry experience. His excitement for the latest floating offshore wind developments fuels his mission: facilitating large-scale development of floating offshore wind farms in the United States.

As an enthusiastic researcher at NREL, Michael drives research activities on mooring systems and site conditions, vital to the lab's pursuit of optimizing floating offshore wind farms. With broad expertise in offshore wind, offshore oil and gas, and shipbuilding, he explores new frontiers, guided by hands-on industry experience.

Prior to joining NREL, Michael worked for more than 6 years as a project engineer on many large-scale offshore wind farm development and offshore export cable installation projects. Before that, he spent 3 years designing countless steel structures for ships that are successfully in operation and sailing around the world.

Research Interests

Floating Offshore Wind

Mooring System Design

Design Optimization

Education

Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.), Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Hamburg University of Technology

M.Sc., Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Hamburg University of Technology

B.Sc., Naval Architecture, Hamburg University of Technology

Project Management Professional (PMP®)

Professional Scrum Master (PSM I)

Professional Experience

Postdoctoral Researcher Floating Offshore Wind, NREL (2023–Present)

Project Engineer Design Optimization Offshore Wind, RWE (2022–2023)

Project Engineer Subsea Cable Installation, KODIAK GmbH, ext. at 50hertz Transmission GmbH (2020–2022)

Project Engineer Subsea Cable Installation, IMPaC Offshore Engineering GmbH, ext. at 50hertz Transmission GmbH (2017–2020)

Structural Engineer, SDC Ship Design & Consult GmbH (2014–2017)

Student Research Assistant, Hamburg University of Technology (2012–2014)

Associations and Memberships

Member, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)