Department welcomes grad student & NSF Fellowship recipient, Jordan Hoyt
The Department extends a warm welcome to Jordan Hoyt, an incoming graduate student and a recipient of a 2016 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to the AEM program. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tulsa this past spring. Jordan will be working with Professor Seiler on wind turbine control systems and potentially on neural network controls of wind farms with a former U of M AEM PhD, Jen Annoni, who now works at the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC).
Jordan’s interest in wind research and wind farms was piqued when he had the opportunity to intern at the NWTC. After his time as a “windtern”, he changed his focus from conducting concentrated solar/thermal power research, which he had been pursuing throughout most of his undergrad, to wind energy controls research.
His interest in this niche of research was what led him to the AEM graduate program. Jordan says, “I only applied to five places in the world I could find that had the type of wind energy controls research I wanted to do: Colorado, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and Minnesota. The NSF made a compelling case for me to stay stateside with the GRFP though. After visiting, it became clear that the U of M was unmatched in regards to research caliber, reputation, world-wide collaboration, and access to state of the art wind tunnels at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. It also helped that AEM has access to one of the largest controls research turbines.”
Jordan is hopeful that five years of graduate school will help in deciding his future job prospects. As of now, Jordan can envision himself pursuing one of four career paths:
- Become a research professor of engineering for wind energy science at a university
- Work in DC on the policy side of renewable energy engineering and sustainability or with the NSF
- Continue as a researcher at the NWTC as a national lab researcher
- Go into industry as a wind energy engineer
Until then, the Department is looking forward to seeing what discoveries "Air Jordan" can rustle up in the field of wind energy.