Dr Ian Masters is Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Swansea University. He is a Chartered Mathematician and Chartered Scientist and has published over 70 technical papers and managed over £2m of collaborative R&D projects.

Ian is Head of the Marine Energy Research Group at Swansea University which is based at the world renowned 4* Civil and Computational Engineering Centre, founded by Prof. Zienkiewicz in the 1960s.

The Swansea research was the starting point for the Low Carbon Research Institute Marine Consortium (LCRI Marine), formed in 2006 to undertake world class research into the generation of renewable electrical energy from waves, tides and currents in oceans, estuaries and rivers. It includes all the Welsh Universities. To ensure the industrial relevance of the research, in 2008 the Marine Energy Task Group for Wales was formed. With over 50 member organisations from industry, government, and environmental groups, it supports efforts to generate marine energy around the coast of Wales.

Dr Masters research includes: The interaction of tidal turbine rotor blades with combined tide, wave and turbulent flows; marine vessel survey of high energy wave and tidal sites; CFD modelling of wave machines, tidal turbines, arrays, wakes, scour and deposition; environmental impact analysis of wave and tidal energy sites.

Dr Masters is a member of the BSI Technical Committee for marine energy standards and was previously Financial Director of Swanturbines Ltd., a marine renewable energy company and a leading developer of tidal stream turbines (www.swanturbines.co.uk). This “underwater wind turbine” is a fully submerged and completely predictable form of energy.

At the university, Dr Masters teaches engineering design skills and as a practical example, he is responsible for Swansea University Race Engineering, a student project to design, build and race a formula one style racing car.