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Lir National Ocean Test Facility
Prof. Jimmy Murphy
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Jimmy participates in a large number of EU funded projects and currently is co-ordinator of FP7 LEANWIND, H2020 MaRINET2, H2020 MARINERG-i and H2020 TAOIDE which are all related to advancing the offshore renewable energy (ORE) sector.
Jimmy is the lead of the Lir National Ocean Test Facility (Lir NOTF) and the ORE Technology group within UCC MaREI which consists of over 40 staff and post graduate students.
Finally he is a senior lecturer for Harbour and Coastal Engineering and Offshore Renewable Energy in the School of Engineering, UCC. Jimmy also supervises PhD and Masters students and has a number of publications in the areas of coastal engineering and offshore renewable energy.
BACKGROUND
PhD in Coastal/Geotechnical Engineering (1994).
Jimmy has worked in UCC since 1993 primarily on research and commercial projects related to coastal engineering and offshore renewable energy. Much of his work has concentrated on the understanding of ocean processes and the behaviour of marine structures and has involved a combination of field monitoring, numerical modelling and physical modelling.
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Dr. Ross O'Connell
OVERVIEW
Ross joined MaREI as an intern on the EirWind project in 2019. He then went on to lead the GIS work package for the Selkie project before managing the Wet-Storage project from start through to completion. Now funded by the SEAI, Ross is managing the National Ocean Test Facility whilst also working on an extension of the Selkie GIS-TE tool which he developed at MaREI.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Lir – the National Ocean Test Facility provides world-class laboratory testing for offshore wind, wave and tidal energy devices. The facilities at Lir include four wave tanks that can replicate real ocean conditions and enable testing of various marine innovations, technologies and structures at different scales. As well as the ocean test infrastructure, Lir also offers a highly experienced team of researchers and operators.
The extension of the Selkie GIS-TE tool involves incorporating offshore wind as a third technology type, adding to wave and tidal energy technology. This tool allows for user interactive site selection and project feasibility analysis of offshore renewable energy projects in Irish and western UK waters and has recently been nominated for Innovation / Research Project of the year at the 2025 Esri Customer Success awards.
BACKGROUND
Ross is a Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher at UCC’s Beaufort Building. He has a PhD in Engineering from University College Cork, an MSc in Geoinformatics from the University of Copenhagen, a Higher Diploma in Geography from University College Cork and a BSc in Project Management from Munster Technological University. While in the Nordics, he also took credited courses in coastal and marine management at the University Centre of the Westfjords in Iceland as part of an exchange scholarship. He has spent time at sea and has served as a volunteer in the Irish Coast Guard. Ross has also been a public represantive for his native West Cork on Cork County Council, serving on the Coastal Management Committee. In 2022, Ross won the MaREI PhD Student of the Year Award at University of Galway.
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Dr. Milad Zabihi
OVERVIEW
Milad is a research support officer and lead test engineer at Lir National Ocean Test Facility, MaREI, University College Cork.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
He is currently designing, conducting and analyzing experimental tests on different types of marine renewable energy devices including wind, wave and tidal converters to improve the technology readiness level of these novel ideas.
BACKGROUND
Milad obtained his PhD in ocean and marine structures in 2019 from the Iranian National Institute for Oceanography and Atmospheric Science. During his PhD, he worked on harnessing the wave energy using Oscillating Water Column device both numerically and experimentally.
His background is in civil engineering, and he has extensive experience in designing different engineering structures including coastal and offshore structures. He worked for 6 years in Iranian marine and civil engineering consultant companies prior to joining MaREI in 2021.
He got his B.Sc and M.Sc in 2010 and 2013, from Noshirvani university of technology, and Iran University of Science and Technology, respectively.
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Dr. Mahdi Ebrahimi Salari
OVERVIEW
Mahdi is a Postdoctoral researcher at MaREI Centre, University College Cork. His research is mainly focused on offshore wind energy systems.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Research activities are numerical modelling of wind energy systems, grid integration of renewable energy devices and hardware-in-the-loop testing of renewable energy generators.
BACKGROUND
Mahdi obtained his PhD from the University of Limerick in “Direct interconnection technique applied to marine renewable generators, specifically airborne wind energy”. Mahdi’s PhD project was supported by the European Commission under the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie action: ITN AWESCO. After finishing his PhD project in 2018, he continued to work at the University of Limerick as a Postdoctoral researcher. Since February 2021, Mahdi has started a postdoctoral position at MaREI Centre, University College Cork.
During his postdoctoral studies at the University of Limerick, he lectured Modern electrical Power Systems in 2020 and co-lectured Electrical Power Systems course in 2019 and 2018. He was also teaching at the Khorasan Scientific and Industrial College of Applied Science and Technology University, Mashhad, Iran, between Sep.2008 and Sep 2014.
He received his M.Sc. in electrical power engineering from Islamic Azad University (IAU), Najaf Abad branch (University of Najafabad), in 2009, and the B.Sc. degree from Islamic Azad University, Bojnord branch, Iran, in 2007. During his M.Sc. studies at IAU, Mahdi worked on a research project for designing linear permanent magnet generators (LPMG) for marine wave energy conversion in the seas of Iran.
His research interests are in renewable energy, electrical power system dynamics, power electronics and electrical machines design.
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Dr. Mahdiyeh Farajvand
OVERVIEW
Mahdiyeh is currently a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the MaREI Centre, University College Cork, where she is involved in experimental campaigns and industry collaborations in offshore wind and ocean energy projects.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Mahdiyeh is currently working on the AtlanticFloat project, funded by SEAI, where she analyses experimental data from offshore wind energy devices to support design and validation efforts. She is also involved in an SEAI/SLA project, carrying out numerical simulation analyses of marine renewable devices as part of Ireland’s Ocean Energy programme in partnership with UCC.
BACKGROUND
Mahdiyeh Farajvand received her B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (2016) and M.Sc. in Mechatronics Engineering (2019) from the University of Tabriz, Iran, where her research focused on wave energy systems. She completed her Ph.D. at Centre for Ocean Energy Research (COER) in Electronic Engineering (2024) at Maynooth University, Ireland, with expertise in hydrodynamic modelling and uncertainty quantification of wave energy devices.
She also worked as an R&D Engineer at Foolad Gharb Company, Tabriz, Iran (2019–2020), where she led product development projects and contributed to two patent submissions.
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Artem Egorov
OVERVIEW
Artem is a Mechanical&Control engineer and researcher at MaREI Centre, University College Cork. His research focuses primarily on robotic solutions that help test and improve offshore wind energy systems.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Current research focuses on emulating forces and torques on floating wind turbines.
BACKGROUND
Artem received his MSc degree from ITMO University in 2023 with a thesis titled “DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS FOR PLANNING THE MOVEMENTS OF A WALKING ROBOT WITH OPTIMAL CONTROL”. The project was supported by a commercial company with the aim of improving the use of walking robots in everyday life.
During his B.Sc. and M.Sc. studies, Artem was a researcher at the Biomechatronics and Energy-Efficient Robotics Laboratory, where he participated in grants for the development of parallel manipulators, a passive exoskeleton, a motor reducer design, and an optimal controller for a walking robot.
Artem led student robotics club and supervised student teams at robotics competitions. During his M.Sc. studies, he taught a course on adaptive control of electric motors.
After graduating from university, he worked for a commercial company developing autonomous solutions for a factory inspection.
Artem's main interests are control theory, differential geometry in robotics, rigid body dynamics, and nonlinear optimization.
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Dr. Venkata Sesha Sricharan Vaddiraju
OVERVIEW
Sricharan is a test engineer and senior postdoctoral researcher at Lir National Ocean Test Facility, MaREI, University College Cork. Primary interests.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Sricharan is involved in the novel concepts, hydrodynamic modelling, optimization, and experimental testing of offshore renewable energy technologies, including wave, floating solar, and offshore wind systems.
BACKGROUND
Sricharan obtained his PhD from the department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture (2021) at Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). During his doctoral research, he worked on the design and development of a novel bean-shaped wave energy converter, incorporating a hydraulic power take-off system, supported by experimental validation and levelized cost of energy (LCoE) studies tailored to Indian wave climates.
He has over four years of industrial experience as a Lead Hydrodynamic Engineer, where he led and contributed to the development of community scale wave energy converters, offshore & inland floating solar technologies for companies including Oscilla Power, SolarDuck, SolarinBlue, and Quant Solar.
His academic background is in Mechanical Engineering, where his interest in renewable energy began during his undergraduate studies through a project focused on concept development for hybrid solar-hydro energy systems for Indian households.
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