2026 North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy PROGRAM Symposium
The 15th Annual North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Symposium will convene in person at the Coastal Studies Institute on March 23 & 24, 2026.
The North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program (NCROEP) will be hosting the annual research symposium in person on March 23-24, 2026, at the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI) on the ECU Outer Banks Campus in Wanchese, NC. The two-day event will include keynote speakers, research presentations, a student poster contest, and workshops.
Registration
Please REGISTER for the Symposium by March 12, 2026. All attendees, including researchers and students funded by the program, must register.
NCROEP research presentations
Each NCROEP-funded research project must present a high-level update of their research at the NCROEP Research Symposium. The 15-20 minute long presentation will focus on how the research advances the state-of-the-art and summarize progress to date and plans for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Presenters are asked to remember that this is an interdisciplinary symposium. The content should target an audience with varied disciplinary expertise. Please be sure to define acronyms, use accessible language, and minimize the use of long formulas.
NCROEP student poster contest
NCROEP-funded students are encouraged to register for the student poster contest. The first 15 poster presentation registrations received before the March 12, 2026 deadline will be accepted in the poster session and contest. Student poster presenters should be prepared to deliver 5-minute poster summaries about their research to the judges and other Symposium participants during the March 23 poster session and the reception on the evening of March 23. Awards for the best student poster and poster presentation will be announced at the end of the Symposium, on the afternoon of March 24.
Students, please note that your poster should target an audience with varied disciplinary expertise and highlight project goals, major accomplishments (including students supported, publications and patents, and external funding sought and/or received), and plans for the remainder of the funding cycle and further into the future. A 40″ x 30″ foam board will be provided for temporarily mounting your poster (using clips), so please limit the size of your poster to 42″ x 30″. A scoring rubric for the poster contest will be made available shortly and will be sent to all student registrants, so register early to receive guidance!
AGENDA
Updated 3/23/2026
| Monday, 23 March | |
| Room 262, Coastal Studies Institute, 850 NC Hwy 345, Wanchese, NC | |
| 9:00 AM | Registration and breakfast |
| 10:00 AM | Welcome |
| 10:10 AM | Expectations and highlights |
| 10:20 AM | Keynote: Dr. Bryson Robertson, Director, Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, Univesity of Victoria |
| 11:00 AM | Session 1 – Marine Energy Conversion Systems |
| 11:00 AM | Distributed Embedded Oceanic Energy Harvesting – Michael Dickey |
| 11:20 AM | Generator & Hydrodynamics Co-design for Tethered Coaxial Hydrokinetic Turbines – Matthew Bryant, Andre Mazzoleni, and Iqbal Husain |
| 11:40 AM | Break |
| 11:50 AM | Extracting the Unextracted: Modeling & experimental characterization of FLOSS as a trickle charging system in low flow marine currents – Andre Mazzoleni |
| 12:10 AM | WATER BROS Desalination Testing Campaign – Wesley Williams |
| 12:30 PM | Group Photo |
| 12:30 PM | Lunch |
| 1:00 PM | Student poster session |
| 2:00 PM | Session 2 |
| 2:00 PM | NC Renewable Energy Challenge: Building the Blue Economy – John McCord, Parker Murphy, Lauren Kerlin |
| 2:20 PM | Disentangling inter-relationships among drivers of social accceptability of marine energy – Linda D’Anna and Eric Wade |
| 2:40 PM | Reliability & Health Monitoring for Marine Energy Microgrid – Phase 2 Hardware Validation & Field Testing – Tiefu Zhao and Babak Parkhideh |
| 3:00 PM | Performance enhancement of ocean current turbine arrays using adaptive trailing-edge flap control – Babu, Praveen Ramaprabhu, and John Hall |
| 3:20 PM | Enhancing Scalable Wave Energy Systems Designs to Support NC Coastal Resilience & Blue Economy – Anderson de Quieroz, Mo Gabr, Bora Karayaka, Yi-Hsiang Yu |
| 3:40 PM | NCInnovation – Derrick Welch |
| 4:00 PM | Powering Coastal Aquaculture: Field Demonstration of Paired Tidal Energy Harvesting & Water Quality Monitoring – Lindsay Wentzel, Matthew Bryant, Andre Mazzoleni, Trip Taylor |
| 4:20 PM | UNC Charlotte MECC Team Presentation |
| Reception at Jennette’s Pier, Oceanview Hall | |
| 5:30 PM | Reception, Poster Session, and EDGE Award presentation |
| 6:30 PM | Dinner |
| Tuesday, 24 March | |
| Rm 262, Coastal Studies Institute, 850 NC Hwy 345, Wanchese, NC | |
| 8:00 AM | Registration and breakfast |
| 9:00 AM | AMEC Partner Presentations |
| 9:00 AM | Cheslea Kimball, University of New Hampshire |
| 9:30 AM | Kevin Whycoff, Lehigh University |
| 10:15 AM | Decentralized Controls & Communications Enabled Resilient & Scalable AMEC Marine DC Microgrid for WEC Testing & Powering the Blue Economy – Zeljko Pantic |
| 10:35 AM | Design & Demonstration of a Wave Energy Converter with an Adaptive Stiffness Power Take-Off System – Matthew Bryant |
| 10:55 AM | Optimizing Marine Energy Utilization in Microgrids for Micro & Light-Duty Electric Mobility Charging – Lingxiang Yun, Muyue Han, Tao Hong |
| 11:15 AM | Instrumented Swivel-based Mooring System to Improve Reliability of Wave Energy Converters via Integrated Load Monitoring – Michael Smith and Trip Taylor |
| 11:35 AM | Influence of Installation Effects on Axial & Lateral Capacity of Micropile Groups under Monotonic & Cyclic Loading – Ghadir Haikal, Neda Jamaleddin, and Mo Gabr |
| 12:00 PM | Lunch |
| 12:45 PM | Jennette’s Pier Test Site – Environmental Monitoring Upgrades – Lindsay Dubbs & Amy Thompson |
| 12:50 PM | AMEC BIL Research Update – Mo Gabr and Anderson de Queiroz |
| 1:30 PM | Announcements, including Student Poster Contest winners and FY27 NCROEP RFP schedule, and wrap-up |
| 2:00 PM | Fin |
Accommodations
Symposium attendees must make reservations themselves and are responsible for all costs. Please make your reservation at your earliest convenience.
We suggest considering the following hotels and inns:
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The Tranquil House Inn (252-473-1404): An Inn located in downtown Manteo, on the waterfront. A block of rooms ($149/night) has been reserved under “CSI NCROEP”.
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The Comfort Inn (252-441-6315): A hotel on the oceanfront in Nags Head. A block of rooms ($79/night and $129 for an oceanside room) has been reserved under “CSI-NCROEP 2026”.
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The Holiday Inn Express (1-866-935-6410): An oceanfront hotel in Nags Head. A block of rooms ($94.10/night) has been reserved under “CSI NCROEP”.
- The Roanoke Island Inn (252-473-5511): An Inn located in downtown Manteo. We will not be reserving a block of rooms, but this is a quaint Inn in downtown Manteo.
- The Oasis (252-441-5211): A hotel located on the causeway between Nags Head and Roanoke Island. We will not be reserving a block of rooms here, but it is a nice hotel overlooking the Sound.
If you have questions, please contact NCROEP Director, George Bonner.
Based at the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI), the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program (NCROEP) advances inter-disciplinary marine energy solutions across UNC System partner colleges of engineering at NC State University, UNC Charlotte, and NC A&T University. Click on the links below for more information.
ECU's Integrated Coastal Programs (ECU ICP) is a leader in coastal and marine research, education, and engagement. ECU ICP includes the Coastal Studies Institute, ECU's Department of Coastal Studies, and ECU Diving and Water Safety.
The ECU Outer Banks campus is home to the Coastal Studies Institute.
