Student Awarded 2024–25 Mazilu Engineering Research Fellowship

Emily Barosin '25

"Opportunities to harness marine energy are plentiful and invaluable in supporting the renewable energy transition," says Barosin. "I'm excited to help technology developers by creating a device that allows them to monitor the health and performance of underwater turbines as they're tested and deployed. And I'm grateful to the Mazilu family for their support of Thayer and in making this research possible."

The project, entitled, "A structural health monitoring system for underwater turbines using passive acoustic monitoring techniques," aims to utilize both passive acoustic monitoring and computational models for reliable detection of a turbine's structural faults and the acoustic signature of these faults. 

"Following an initial study on the bioacoustics of seagrass, Emily has turned her attention to the acoustics of underwater turbine blades," says Professor Cushman-Roisin. "The intriguing and clever aspect of this research is not so much the noise made by these blades as the ability to detect in the acoustic signal when a blade goes bad and is in need of repair. This would save on costly underwater inspections and repairs."