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Deborah Greaves OBE FREng BEng DPhil CEng FRINA FICE FWES FIMarEST

Professor

Statutory Professor of Civil Engineering

COLLEGE: Brasenose College
LOCATION:

Biography

Deborah Greaves is the Statutory Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Oxford. Prior to that she was Professor of Ocean Engineering, Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Decarbonisation and ORE, and the COAST Laboratory at the University of Plymouth with previous appointments at the University of Oxford, UCL and the University of Bath.

She completed her undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering at the University of Bristol in 1988 and DPhil in Ocean Engineering at the University of Oxford in 1995. She has led many national and international research projects concerning ORE in collaboration with industrial and academic partners and is Director of the EPSRC Supergen ORE Hub.

She was awarded an OBE in 2018, was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020 and is President Elect of IMarEST in 2025.

Research

Her research interests include marine and offshore renewable energy, and physical and numerical modelling of wave-structure interaction. She has led many national and international research projects concerning offshore renewable energy (ORE) in collaboration with industrial and academic partners, is Director of the EPSRC Supergen Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Hub and also leads the EPSRC High End Computing Consortium and Collaborative Computational Project in Wave-Structure Interaction.

Research Interests

  • Offshore Renewable Energy
  • Wave Structure Interaction
  • Hydrodynamics of wave energy converters and floating offshore wind
  • Computational fluid dynamics

Research Projects

  • NERC Establishing a Framework for Quantifiable Evidence and Impact of Ecosystem Change Throughout the Lifecycle of UK Floating Offshore Wind Farms (EQUIFy), £3,666,318 FEC, led by PML with CEFAS, NOC, University of Aberdeen, Oxford, Plymouth, Highlands and Islands, 2024 - 2028.
  • EPSRC CoSeC CCP Bridging Funding Collaborative Computational Project on Wave Structure Interaction (CCP-WSI), PI, with City University of London; Manchester Metropolitan University; Manchester University; University of Exeter; Newcastle University; University of Plymouth, STFC, £213,477 2024 – 2026.
  • InnovateUK Fiji WAVEFLOW development of a floating wave energy module that can be combined with floating offshore wind for small island developing states TS/Y014715/1, 2024 – 2026, working with AEON Energy and University of Plymouth.
  • EPSRC GW-SHIFT: Great Western Supercluster of Hydrogen Impact for Future Technologies, 2024-2028, £2,657,041 FEC in total, led by University of Bath with University of Bristol, South Wales, Birmingham, Exeter, Plymouth, Oxford and Cardiff University.
  • EPSRC Supergen ORE Impact Hub 2023, EP/Y016297/1, £7,965,317, 2023-2027, PI with co-Directors from Universities of Southampton, Oxford, Edinburgh, Strathclyde, Exeter, Warwick, Aberdeen, Hull, Manchester and Plymouth.
  • EPSRC High End Computing Consortium for Wave Structure Interaction HEC WSI, EP/X035751/1, PI, £436,048 plus 0.5FTE per annum from the STFC CoSeC team to support HPC users and porting and optimisation, and Computing Resource of 1,480,704 CU with Notional Costs of £296,140.80, 2023 - 2027.
  • NERC Enabling Sustainable Wind Energy Expansion in Seasonally Stratified Seas (eSWEETS) (£132,312 FEC for 34 months), in collaboration with researchers at University of Liverpool (lead), Bangor University, University of Southampton, University of East Anglia, Scottish Association for Marine Science, University of Hull, National Oceanography Centre, University of Aberdeen, University of Plymouth and Marine Scotland Science, 2024 - 2027.
  • EPSRC integrated wind-wave control of semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine platforms (FOWT-Control) (£376,518 FEC for 36 months), with Queen Mary University of London (lead), University of Manchester and University of Exeter, 2024 - 2027.

Recent Publications