Summary
Simon gained his PhD at Heriot-Watt's Orkney campus, in the far north of Scotland. Orkney is an international hub for marine renewable energy development. Subsequently he has worked at the University of Edinburgh, Marine Scotland Science, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the USA.
Simon's research interests centre around renewable energy and the use of regional-scale hydrodynamic modelling to support human activities, understand their effects, and improve planning and policymaking.
Simon's research interests centre around renewable energy and the use of regional-scale hydrodynamic modelling to support human activities, understand their effects, and improve planning and policymaking.
His main area of expertise is in tidal energy, but he is keen to explore problems affecting other energy sources too, and other areas where energy and physical oceanography meet. Recently he has been investigating the implications of very large scale deployment of offshore wind.
"In a broader sense, I care about — without necessarily being expert on — most aspects of energy and energy transition. The physics is great, and important, but it won’t solve our problems in isolation, and the solutions need to consider the environment and society."
Simon is a Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute, with interests in the reproducibility of computational research and training for researchers in software best practice.