OMAE 2021 Keynote Presentations and Panel Discussion

We are pleased to announce that OMAE 2021 Virtual Conference will feature Keynote presentations from seven industry experts, who will speak to the conference topic "Adapting to and mitigating Climate Change in the Marine, Offshore and the Ocean Sectors".

The presentations will be held daily between Monday, June 21 and Tuesday, June 29, 2021, starting at 10:30am EDT.

On June 30, 2021, the last conference day, all seven presenters will return for a live panel discussion on this year’s conference topic.

All keynote presentations will also be recorded and are available for on-demand viewing after the conference.

This year's topics and speakers will be:

Bio: Professor Dirk Notz is a German climate researcher and a lead author of the next IPCC report. He is head of the research group "Sea ice in the Earth System" at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and the University of Hamburg. In his research, he investigates the past and future evolution of the sea-ice cover of our planet. To this aim, he has led numerous scientific expeditions in the Arctic. In addition to his research, Dirk Notz is very engaged in public outreach activities and has won several prizes for his clear communication of scientific topics.

 

 

 

Bio: Mark W. Nelson is Managing Director at Radiant Energy Fund, which fights for the conservation and expansion of clean energy.

Previously he served as Senior Analyst at Environmental Progress in Berkeley, California. His analytical work has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other leading international papers. He holds an M.Phil in nuclear engineering at Cambridge University and B.S. degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University.

 

 

 

Bio: Elzbieta M. Bitner-Gregersen has PhD in nonlinear shallow-water waves and Dr. Habil. degree in oceanology from the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is the Principal of Ocean Wave Research. She has many years’ experience with ocean wave modelling for wave loads and response and structural reliability analysis of marine structures, as chief researcher in DNV. She was the leader of many DNV internal and external research projects. In the 1990’s she led DNV internal project PROCLASS (PRObabilistic methods for CLASSification) which developed methodology and technology which was later adopted in development of Common Rules for Tankers. In 2009-2013 Elzbieta was coordinator of the EC project EXTREME SEAS (Design for Ship Safety in EXTREME SEAS) dedicated to rogue waves and their impact on ship structures. She led the Research Council of Norway project ExWaCli (Extreme waves and climate change: Accounting for uncertainties in design of marine Structures) in 2013-2016, and in 2016-2020 the ExWaMar (EXtreme wave WArning criteria for MARine structures) project on warning criteria for extreme and rogue waves. Elzbieta was the chairman of the ISSC Committee I.1 Environment in the period 2006-2015, an Associate Editor in the ASME Journal and a Guest Editor in Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. She has written many scientific articles and several popular science articles. She is the first author of the monograph on "Ship and Offshore Structure Design in Climate Change Perspective", Springer Brief in Climate Studies.

Bio: As of October 2019 Dr. Walter L. Kuehnlein is Advisor, Consultant, Lecturer and Speaker at terra.blue, in partnership with Xolo Go OÜ, focused on:

• • blue and smart offshore and arctic solutions,
• • blue and smart energy concepts,
• • artificial intelligence and digitization in marine technology and
• • fair and sustainable use of the oceans.

Dr. Kuehnlein was founder and Managing Director (2008-2019) of the consultancy company sea2ice Ltd. & Co. KG, dealing with operational and design related aspects of offshore structures and systems in harsh environments, especially in ice.

Since 1997, he is involved in the first drilling project in the North Caspian Sea, where he worked as Engineering and Project Manager in the US, Russia, and Kazakhstan and today as Adviser. From 2001 till 2009 he was Director at the Hamburg Ship Model Basin (HSVA), responsible for Arctic & Offshore.

Dr. Kuehnlein is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the German Association for Marine Technology (GMT, since 2008)). He was from 2001-2020 Symposium Coordinator Arctic Technology of the OMAE Conferences and was also chairman of several Offshore and Arctic Conferences, including ATC 2016. Furthermore, he is a member of the German Offshore Committee of DNV, and "advisor offshore" for the international magazine Ship & Offshore.

Dr. Kuehnlein is a lecturer on "Ice Engineering" and "Offshore Engineering" at the Hamburg University of Technology and “Offshore Engineering” at the Berlin University of Technology.

Dr. Kuehnlein graduated in Civil & Ocean Engineering and received his Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering at the Berlin University of Technology, Germany.

Bio: After 7 years as a Merchant Marine Officer, particularly on ro-ro ships, Jean Zanuttini has been acting as a maritime and naval consultant since 2010. He combines a technical, operational and commercial expertise. From 2011, along with Michel PERY (Captain in the Merchant Navy), he starts to focus on the different aspects that apply to the construction of the NEOLINER : a 136-meter ship that is mainly propelled by wind power, which makes it a unique prototype of eco-friendly, reliable and decorrelated to fuel-price maritime transportation at an industrial scale.

 

 

 

Bio: Sverre Overå has been managing large investment projects for Equinor for the last 20+ years. He was project manager for TCM (CO2 Technology Centre Mongstad, the world's largest test centre for CO2 capture) in the design and construction phases from 2006 to 2012, before moving to Rio and heading up Equinor's portfolio of modification projects in Brazil. In 2016 he returned to CCS when he became project director for the Northern Lights project, a key element of the Norwegian State's full scale demonstration project "Longship".

 

 

 

Bio: Dominique is a Naval Architect and a serial renewable energy entrepreneur. After starting Marine Innovation and technology in 2003, and serving as Principle Power Chief Technology Officer for 12 years, he now focuses his energy on Ocergy, which develops offshore sustainable solutions. Dominique obtained his doctorate in Naval Architecture from UC Berkeley twenty years ago and is an expert in the design of floating structures and in synergies between various ocean related technologies. He is actively involved in ASME and the OOAE division, under which he founded the IOWTC conference on offshore wind. He is a fellow member of SNAME and was the 2020 recipient of the Elmer A. Sperry Award for the development of the WindFloat. On his spare time, he is an avid sailor and enjoys swimming, skiing and biking actively.

 

 

Bio: Robert serves as President of Acumetis LLC. Prior to his current role, Robert enjoyed a 33-year career with Shell working in a variety of Technology, Project Delivery, and Leadership roles. Positions included Executive Vice President Engineering, Vice President Deepwater Projects, VP Corporate Support in Exploration & Production Europe, VP Upstream in Shell Global Solutions, and Development Manager in A/S Norske Shell. Robert received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Engineering Sciences and Mechanics from the University of Florida.

Panelists: