This past summer and throughout the fall semester I have been contributing to the U of S Numerical Simulation Lab as a research assistant. One of my most interesting projects included running aerodynamic simulations on a new model of a vertical axis wind turbine. This emerging technology has shown to be cheaper and more efficient than currently used horizontal axis wind turbines. Full scale wind farms have a chance of being implemented in the next few years based on the design I worked on.

Also with the lab, I worked on a project dealing with the Resistivity Method used in geophysics to determine the formation of materials in the Earth. Specifically, I created a numerical simulation of the experiment and tested possible errors associated with the measurements and how they affect the data. My research partners and I wrote an article on our findings which is currently being reviewed with the Journal of Applied Geophysics.

Although my work with the simulation lab did not directly involve my degree in electrical engineering, I learned much about computer programming, numerical simulations, and optimization, which is all beneficial to my degree.