Harrison Otton
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Lei Zuo
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering / Engineering
Program:
Authors: Harrison Otton, Stacey Jiang, Mrunal Bhalerao
Session: Session 6: 3:40 pm – 4:30 pm
Poster: 84
Abstract
The idea of the research is to participate in a competition to convert a non-powered dam to a hydropower dam. We compete with different colleges across America and are judged based on our final presentation. My specific part is the connections creation contest. I am supposed to connect with the community and industry leaders through different methods. So far, we have focused mostly on industry leaders. We have to have 4 interviews with different industry leaders as a requirement for the project. To do this we have used existing connections as well as emailing industry leaders. We currently have had an interview with Dr. Deng, a researcher for PNNL, who works on making fish-safe turbines, and David McIntosh, who works in licensing for Consumers. We have interviews set up with Richard Blumenstock, Executive Director of Generation Engineering at Consumers Energy. We hope to learn from his experience in the field to help us with our project, as well as connect with the Ann Arbor Government. We are in the process of scheduling a meeting through our contact Dr. Stults, who is the director of sustainability and innovations in Ann Arbor. We have connected with Anthony Heddlesten, P.E., CFM virtually. He had worked on retrofitting multiple dams and it is important we meet with him to learn more about the retrofitting process. This work has helped the team learn more about the process of retrofitting the dams and licensing and overall helped me with my outreach skills.
