Sofia University,
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

The presentation of the lecturers in the second edition of MREA will be published by the end of July.

Scroll down to read moreAss.Prof. Dr. Mariya Trifonova brings 13 years of experience with Renewable Energy Sources (RES) technologies. She is also deputy director of Net-Zero Lab and lecturer at FEBA where she teaches RES and biofuels, Sustainable development of energy systems, Green and circular economy. Her Ph.D. focuses on institutional factors for RES development in three EU countries, and she has also conducted various studies on social acceptance of renewable energy technologies. Dr. Trifonova is the author of the first techno-economic assessment of offshore wind energy potential in the Bulgarian section of the Black Sea based on nation-specific data and was part of the working group that drafted the offshore wind legislative act in Bulgaria. She is a member of the steering committee of ETIPWind and former coordinator of the BLUECEE initiative aimed at establishing the Black Sea Renewable Energy Coalition, replicating Offshore Coalition for Energy and Nature (OCEAN). Dr. Trifonova is also a member of the research team of the Horizon-funded JustWindforAll and she served as co-chair of the Energy Transition Commission, a sub-committee of the Bulgarian Ministerial Council’s Advisory Body on the European Green Deal. Dr. Trifonova co-authored knowledge pieces on sustainable renewable energy deployment for Cohesion4Transition community of practice (DG Region).

Technical University of Denmark,
Department of Wind and Energy Systems Society, Market and Policy

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Niels-Erik Clausen works at DTU Wind Energy with planning and development of wind farms, icing of wind turbines, environmental impact and social acceptability of wind energy. He has been project manager or coordinator of various research projects in this field. Since 2007 he has been teaching planning and development of wind farms as a part of DTU’s two-year MSc programme, where he is a head of the study board. Dr. Clausen brings 15 years of experience working as a mechanical engineer in the private sector before joining DTU.

University of Leeds,
School of Civil Engineering

Dr Anne Velenturf works in the Resource Recovery from Waste programme (RRfW) at the University of Leeds where her main role is to facilitate collaboration between their academic, government and industry partners. She is currently Senior Research Fellow in Circular Economy in the School of Civil Engineering. Across the UK, she works with foundation industries such as cement, metals, glass, paper, ceramics and chemicals who manufacture 75% of materials in our economy. Internationally, Anne supports the embedding of circular economy approaches in the wind industry. Dr. Velenturf has explored in her recent research projects circular economy practices into the design, operation and end-of-use management of offshore. She holds various advisory positions for government, research councils and industry within and outside the UK wind infrastructure.

University of Aberdeen,
School of Engineering

Dr Srinivas Sriramula is a Reader in the School of Engineering at the University of Aberdeen, UK. He is Chartered Engineer (CEng, MIMechE) with research interests broadly focused on the development of data-driven risk and reliability modelling approaches for engineering infrastructure, with a focus on energy transition. He has led and been leading industry-funded projects on risk-informed long-term performance of derogated infrastructure at the National Decommissioning Centre, funded through the Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC). Dr Sriramula has led an Innovate UK funded KTP project to enhance the reliability of safety-critical components, which was rated ‘Outstanding’ by the KTP panel (2022). He has previously collaborated with Lloyd's Register in developing safety factors for offshore wind turbine structures and contributed towards the research activities of the Lloyd's Register Foundation (LRF) Centre for Safety & Reliability engineering at Aberdeen.

Georgetown University

Dr. Maria Petrova is an environmental scientist at Georgetown University, USA. She completed a Ph.D. in environmental science at Oregon State University, where she focused on examining public opinion on the introduction of wave energy in the state of Oregon. She holds an M.A. in marketing, advertising, and public relations from the University of Sheffield and a B.A. in business administration from the American University in Bulgaria.Petrova’s research and course topics include environmental science and policy, climate change, sustainability, and renewable energy. She serves as a section co-editor of the UC Press journal Case Studies in the Environment and is an associate of Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

University of Strathclyde,
Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering

Dr. Maurizio Collu is a Professor in Offshore Renewable Energy Engineering at the NAOME Department of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. His area of expertise is applied mechanics, focusing in particular on multidisciplinary, coupled model of dynamics for offshore renewable energy systems. He develops conceptual and preliminary design methodologies for offshore renewable energy systems.
Prof. Collu is currently the Principal Investigator of one of the five EPSRC Joint UK-China Offshore Renewable Energy flagship projects (INNO-MPP). His research group is focusing on the development of multi-purpose offshore platforms for the sustainable development of small/isolated communities, exploiting the synergies among offshore renewable energy and aquaculture industries. He also contributes to “The Blue Growth Farm” project, focusing on the development and demonstration of an automated, modular and environmentally friendly multi-functional platform for open sea farm installations of the Blue Growth Industry.
Prof. Collu sits on several international committees, including the ITTC Specialist Committee on Hydrodynamic Modelling of Marine Renewable Energy Devices and the OMAE Ocean Renewable Energy technical committee.

Independent Consultant, Practitioner

Jørgen Nellemose is a practitioner with over twenty years of industry experience working in the energy and renewables industry.
He currently acts as Lender's Technical Advisor on large-scale on-/offshore wind power and solar projects and has a vast international experience within the due diligence process, supporting and providing market input to investment projects and business development initiatives, globally, to stakeholders such as developers, utilities, banks, and pension funds.
Mr. Nellemose led a variety of technical and commercial projects across Scandinavia, the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, the USA, Mexico, Panama, Columbia, the Middle East, Togo, Nigeria, Angola, Rwanda, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and China.
He has developed a new cutting-edge risk management framework (incl. qualitative and quantitative risk assessments and stress testing) supporting several projects in Europe and Southeast Asia to advise developers how to improve bids/competitiveness, decrease insurance premiums and be in control, cost- and timewise, through all project phases. Mr. Nellemose is one of the initiators of the creation of the Global Wind Organisation.

Marine Management Organisation (MMO), UK

Dr. Rachel Brown is a Marine Planning Manager at the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) in England. She completed her PhD in marine ecology at York University, where she focused on the impacts of climate change and fishing on benthic communities. She has worked in marine planning at the MMO for a decade, leading the programme of work to deliver marine plans for English waters by 2021. The MMO is responsible for preparing, implementing, monitoring marine plans for English waters and supporting marine spatial planning programmes internationally. Dr Brown leads marine plan development work, including evidence and developmental projects. She is currently leading developmental work to further marine spatial prioritisation in English waters focused on how the long-term deployment of offshore wind impacts can be optimised.