Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering MSE

Beginning at the Michigan Marine Hydrodynamics Lab, Harleigh researched and helped design a new beach structure for the towing tank and designed and fabricated a bow for the Department of Defense Autonomous Combat Vehicle project.  Moving on, Harleigh performed a dynamic buoy motion analysis on a facility that experienced buoy integrity issues and recommended an improved buoy design to mitigate future failures for an engineering group.  Later on, Harleigh developed an in-house automated program to calculate mooring line fatigue damage on deep- draft semi-submersible platforms due to Vortex Induced Motion and enabled capability to benchmark & verify future contractor work.  Harleigh is currently researching extreme combined loading scenarios on complex marine vessels and structures, and the waves which lead to these scenarios, as well as reduced-order reliability models and studying how to integrate performance analysis into the design procedure

Awards 

• Rackham Merit Fellowship Recipient: 2014-2015
• National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship: September 2016-2019

What excites you about your career?

• My career is exciting because I can combine intellectual freedom and interesting technical challenges with opportunities to travel the world and interact with people from industry, government, and academia. 
• Getting a Michigan NAME degree means that wherever you go, you will see a familiar face and people will know where you came from. My Michigan NAME experience has opened up so many doors. 
• The ability to choose how I want to apply my knowledge and where I want to do that is amazing, and not something that everyone gets. 

Reflection on Time Spent at UM

• The best part of joining NAME was joining a department that follows you long after you graduate (in a good way). I made friends that I still regularly see and talk to today- even while living on a different continent. I still regularly see Michigan professors and students at conferences. I met my husband in the NAME department! A NAME degree is wonderful and will give you so many opportunities to do good work and travel around the world. But in getting that degree, you’ll also get to interact with great people that you’ll still know years down the line. They don’t call us the Michigan mafia for nothing!

Advice for Students:

• Anyone can be an engineer! Even if you don’t see a lot of people who look like you or seem like they come from a similar background, you can still be a successful engineer without giving up what makes you yourself. 
• Sometimes you have to work hard to convince people that you deserve a seat at the table. But work hard and you will convince them!
• It can be challenging, but it’s worth it. You just have to believe in yourself first: that you deserve to be there, and that you can do it. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true. If you don’t believe in yourself or believe that you deserve to be there, no one else will. But to have confidence that you are just as capable and qualified as anyone else, then everyone else will (eventually) follow suit. Once you’ve decided that you want to be an engineer, you can do it.

After serving on an operational Coast Guard Cutter, I rededicated myself to pursuing my technical education and accepted a position in the USCG Marine Engineering Post Graduate Program, where I attended the University of Michigan and earned dual Master of Science degrees in Naval Architecture and Mechanical Engineering in 2012. From there, I served at the Coast Guard Marine Safety Center (MSC) in Arlington, VA on the Coast Guard’s elite Salvage Engineering Response Team, a group of highly trained naval architects who stand ready 24-hours a day to support Coast Guard field commanders responding to emergent vessel casualty situations following groundings, collisions, and similar casualties. I combined my strengths and passion to pursue technology when I chose to begin my civilian career at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL) in 2015. During my first year at JHU/APL, I developed an autonomous unmanned surface platform with a revolutionary underwater localization technology to support our submarine force. With a diverse background in applying knowledge to develop live ocean systems and maritime solutions, I earned a promotion to Section Supervisor at the Lab, and I am one of the Lab’s subject matter experts in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

My degree enabled me to contribute higher on a technical level having received exposure to various technical concepts covered Michigan’s program. Understanding non-linear behavior in fundamental processes, tackling problems in design optimization, and working in teams during group projects all contributed to my ability to take vague and not very well defined problems and develop novel solutions or insights when collaborating with others.

Reflection on Time Spent at U-M

I am a big fan of FIRST Robotics competitions and mentoring youth. I am not interested in solving easy problems, as I believe we can always push ourselves to reach our true potential. My advice to students would be to tackle your coursework and projects with an open mind because there is usually a piece of an assignment or experience that you can leverage in the future for your career.

Outside of undergraduate internships, this is the first company I worked for after graduating. I was recruited out of the MHL after a company-sponsored test program that I helped the lab manage. I’ve spent my career so far working on multiple internal research and conceptual studies, early-stage project development, and then joining project teams to help integrate the new technology into active projects. I was able to support the development of the deepest installed FPSO in the world and was one of the engineering leads for the first in-situ replacement of tendon connectors for a Tension Leg Platform. My newest role is working on the hull and mooring systems for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines, bringing lessons learned from the offshore oil & gas industry, and applying them to the emerging offshore renewable energy market.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

My Master’s allowed me to hit the ground running in the technical aspects of the job. Working in an R&D environment, there’s a lot of development from scratch, so the additional depth and breadth of knowledge provided by the graduate program was a great asset. In my initial few years, having the Master’s definitely helped with my technical credibility, while I built up my experience. Doing independent study projects with a few professors provided good lessons in research project planning. Working in the MHL gave a good understanding of how engineering principles could be applied, and a few difficult lessons on how sometimes things can go wrong if you don’t fully appreciate the complexity of what you’re doing.

Advice to Students

Try to get as much hands-on experience you can, outside of the classroom. Student engineering teams, research, time in engineering labs, all of those provide opportunities to put theory into practice, which is a huge help. Specifically for NAME, involvement in SNAME and Quarterdeck provides great exposure and networking opportunities to people in the industry. Outside of classroom and professional activities, find student organizations that excite you, whether sporting, social, service, etc. 

Valerie began with in a more traditional manner working as a Naval Architect Contract Engineer with Maritime Research Associates before taking the unconventional route: going to the Olympics.  Since 2017, Valerie has been a Professional Triathlete for Team Belgium, employed by Sport Vlaanderen.  As a member of Belgian National team Valerie has been a part of development program for Olympic Qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and has won numerous medals in competitions.

Awards

• 2019: Ranked top 80 in the World.
• 2019: Bronze Medal World Cup China
• 2019: Bronze Medal World Cup Italy
• 2018: Bronze Medal European Championship Mixed Relay Team.
• 2018: Belgian National Champion (Olympic Distance)
• 2017: European Cup Winner Wuustwezel
• 2017: Belgian National Champion (Sprint Distance)
• 2017: Belgian National Champion (Olympic Distance)

What excites you about your career?

• The possibility to achieve a lifelong dream of being an Olympian. 
• The ability to inspire young women that any goal, whether that be an Engineering degree, or an Olympic qualification, is doable with dedication, hard work, and a good support network.

Reflection on Time Spent at UM

• Varsity Member of UM Swimming and Diving team

Advice for Students:

• Don’t be afraid to ask the department for help. Being a student athlete at Michigan was only possible thanks to the flexibility of the Naval Architecture department, and especially scheduling help from Warren Noone. I was able to take classes out of the “traditional sequence,” in order to fit my curriculum into 4.5 years, and balance my athletic commitment. Warren was always open to a good chat, and a pre-exam pep talk. It’s a small department, which serves as a family within the large University.

Right after graduating from the University of Michigan, I worked at NSWC Panama City Division as part of my service commitment to the SMART Scholarship. During this time, I worked on interesting projects and with great people, but I got the entrepreneurial itch. Consequently, after NSWC Panama City I jumped into establishing a multi-physics analysis firm, where I currently work on organizing proposals, collaborating with other colleagues, and dreaming on what I have always dreamed about—cool boats, science, and technology. If I was suddenly placed in my current position without the experience I gained from past academic and professional projects, I would not have the confidence in continuing this path.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

My Master’s degrees provide me a broad technical knowledge which I can tap into when analyzing new problems and solutions, the humbleness in knowing that there is always more information to learn from, and the confidence to explore new material—both individually and with others.

Reflection on Time Spent at U-M

The UMich communities are a great way to connect with others and make new friends. I cherish the time I did in the Ballroom Dance Team and Michigan Cycling Team. These student group experiences are ones that you will be hard-pressed to find after college, so do not hesitate in joining a community.

After college, Jess worked as a Marine Engineer at ExxonMobil for just over a year before transferring to Boeing to work as a Fluid Systems Standards Engineer at The Boeing Company

What excites you about your career?

• I work with complex fluid systems across all airplane programs and at all phases of production, from new design to legacy aircraft. The projects and scope of work are really exciting. I love that I can ‘see’ so much of the company in my daily work. I am constantly learning, and I get to manage complicated problems in a company where I am empowered.
• Switching from the energy industry to the aviation industry is a huge career highlight of mine!

Reflection on Time Spent at UM

• I loved my time at the University of Michigan, especially my time in the NA&ME department! My favorite student organization was Quarterdeck. I had so many cool, fun experiences engaging with the maritime industry and I was able to develop many interpersonal skills that I use in my career through Quarterdeck. I will also always fondly remember late nights and early mornings senior year in the computer lab working on design projects.

Advice for Students:

• Work hard, and enjoy the work! The University of Michigan is a competitive school, that will open so many doors for you. It’s also a place with great people and a strong community, so make friends and study hard!

I started at Shell immediately after graduate school, and for the past 4 years have mainly been involved in 2 multi-billion dollar projects, Appomattox and Vito. Both are semi-submersible floating production facilities in more than 1500 meters of water. My job has primarily focused on marine aspects of these platforms, including marine transportation, platform installation, offshore mooring design and installation, marine tow, as well as hull design and construction.

What excites you about your career?

• I get to play an integral part of the life cycles of multi-billion dollar assets every day, which presents a different set of exciting challenges. Having the capability to be able to see how choices we make in a design stage are implemented into real life is a humbling experience, especially for projects that have a life cycle of concept design to execution of multiple years. 

Reflection on Time Spent at UM

• I was part of a science and engineering fraternity (called Triangle), that also doubled as social group, which brought many like-minded people together. I loved the camaraderie that it brought, but there was a strong academic focus which helped keep my discipline to study and focus on classes. 
• I enjoyed Quarterdeck society has it brought industry back to connect with students on a weekly basis, and served as a platform to make connections. 
• It is incredible how many of the classes that I took at Michigan I use on a regular basis, as an engineer in Shell you are expected to be multi-disciplined. 

Advice for Students:

• Take advantage of a study abroad! Put in the work during your sophomore or junior year to understand what universities across the world have applicable transfer credits for your undergraduate classes. You would be surprised how flexible different classes are, and how you can rearrange schedules to meet credit requirements.
• Take advantage of internship opportunities to explore the different industries that can be applicable within the NAME discipline. I was fortunate enough to work in a naval shipyard, a commercial yard, and the oil and gas industry in three consecutive years, which enabled me to know what type of work I wanted to be involved in for my career.