Profile
Dr Helen C M Smith
Senior Lecturer in Renewable Energy
Telephone: 01326 254186
Dr Helen Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Renewable Energy, and Director of Education for the undergraduate and postgraduate Renewable Energy programmes. Her primary research focus is on resource and impact assessment for the marine environment, and the development of numerical tools to support ‘blue growth’ in areas such as marine energy and aquaculture through enhanced understanding of the wave and tidal environment and the potential impacts on the physical environment. Her work also contributes to the other research activity in the Offshore Renewable Energy group, which includes hydrodynamics and marine operations, offshore reliability, and offshore technology.
Helen is currently Exeter PI on the BBSRC/NERC-funded project ‘Off-Aqua: Evaluating the environmental conditions required for the development of offshore aquaculture’, led by the Scottish Association for Marine Science. The project aims to evaluate the impacts of moving finfish aquaculture into more exposed and energetic locations from the perspectives of fish health, the marine environment, and infrastructure risk. Helen is also Co-I on two Interreg VA France (Channel) England programme projects: ‘Intelligent Community Energy’ (ICE), working with partners in the UK and France to develop innovative smart energy solutions for isolated communities in the Channel area, and ‘TIGER: Tidal Stream Energiser Project’, aimed at demonstrating tidal stream energy as a maturing industry through site, technology and supply chain development and turbine installation in the Channel region.
Helen leads modules on ‘Applied Computing for Energy Studies’ and ‘Marine Renewable Energy’ on the BEng/MEng Renewable Energy Engineering and BSc Renewable Energy programmes. She also contributes to the EPSRC Industrial CDT in Offshore Renewable Energy (IDCORE), where she leads the ‘Marine Renewable Resource Assessment’ module.
Helen completed her PhD at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus, entitled 'Modelling for resource and environmental impact assessments of wave farms'. She also holds an MSc Hydrography from Plymouth University and a BA Physics from the University of Oxford.