The idea to create the Wave Energy Centre was first mentioned in a public presentation in the international conference Oceans III Millenium, 1st International Congress on Marine Science and Technology, held in Pontevedra/Spain in 2001.

Two years later and with a team of four people - one director, one secretary and two young researchers of the Instituto Superior Técnico (Faculty of Technology) the Wave Energy Centre was created  with ten associates. 

Today the team is composed of 17 specialists of different areas such as hydrodynamics, numerical modeling, environmental assessment, monitoring and communication. The increase of the WavEC team in these last years reflects the increase of our participation in projects mainly in the field of technology&monitoring, modeling, environment, dissemination and public policies.

The WavEC has worked as well in collaboration with researchers of the IST since the beginning of its foundation and received students of several countries, including France, Norway, India, U.S.A, The Netherlands and Germany that have realized traineeships and final course studies under the supervision of the WavEC.

President of Board of Directors

António Sarmento

Is an associate professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Instituto Superior Técnico (Technical University of Lisbon) and is active in the field of wave energy research for more then three decades. He is the director of the Wave Energy Centre since its foundation in 2003 and was as member of the Board of Directors of the European Ocean Energy Association from 2006 to 2011. Professor António Sarmento was also member of the Board of directors of the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineering (ISOPE), from July of 2007 to January 2011.

Executive Director

Ana Brito Melo

Ana Brito e Melo holds a PhD (2000) and a Master (1995) in Mechanical Engineering and a first degree in Civil Engineering from the IST (Instituto Superior Técnico) of the Technical University in Lisbon. Ana has more than 15 years of experience in wave energy, starting from tank tests and numerical modelling, towards technology assessment, site selection and feasibility studies. She is research & services coordinator at WavEC, and she has been responsible for the preparation of several reports for national and international companies in the energy sector. Since 2002 she has been running the OES-IA (Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems of the International Energy Agency) secretariat. Since 2008 she is the representative of WavEC in the national committee of TC114.

Public Policies and Dissemination

Nuno Matos

Nuno Matos has a degree in Telecommunication and Electronics at the IST in 1974. In the same year he started his activity at the TLP (Portuguese Telecom since 1994) at the operational and engineering section until 1981, when he started the function of Commercial Directors. Comercial Director of Telepac since its creation in 1984. Administrator of Telepac between 1996 and 1999. Vice President of Lusa Press Agency  between 2000 and 2003. Dirctor of Revenue Assurance, Fraude and Credit Control of TMN between 2003 and 2007. Consultant of WavEC since 2009, becoming the responsible for the Public Policies and Dissemination Department since January 2010.

Janete Gonçalves

Janete obtained her degree in Social and Cultural Communication in 1998 at the Portuguese Catholic University of Lisbon. After the foundation of the Wave Energy Centre in 2003 she started to work as a secretary with communication responsibility. In 2007 she started full-time for the communication section of WavEC. Janete is responsible for the maintenance of the WavEC, Wavetrain2 and Pico websites collaborating as well on the OES-IA webpage. She is also responsible for the WavEC newsletter and social networks. Janete is the coordinator of Aquaret2 project.

Alex Raventos

Alex Raventos obtained his degree in Industrial Engineering in 2005 at the Universtitat Politecnica de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain), and he is currently involved in the MIT-Portugal Sustainable Energy Systems postgraduation. In 2007 he started his activity in ocean energy in Abencis Seapower S.L. as the R&D responsible of a wave energy device.

In 2009 he joins the WavEC team, in the aim of the Wavetrain2 project, being responsible for studies in socio-economic area.

Soraya Hamawi

Soraya Hamawi started off as an intern in the year 2010 and eventually obtained her master degree in Science and Innovation management at the Utrecht University (Universiteit Utrecht) in 2011. Her master thesis was aimed at giving policy recommendations to improve the Portuguese wave energy sector. Currently she is working on different national and European projects concerning energy policies and technologies. She also works for OES (Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems of the International Energy Agency).

Environmental

Teresa Simas

Teresa Simas obtained a degree in Marine Biology and Fisheries at the Algarve University (Portugal) in 1995 and further graduation (masters in 1998 and PhD in 2007) in Environmental Sciences at the New University of Lisbon. She worked in the Geochemical and Ecological Modelling Group at the Institute of Marine Research (IMAR) where her research activity focused on water quality management. In 2008 (December) she joins the WavEC were she is coordinating projects on environmental research and strategy.

Sofia Patrício

Sofia Patrício has a degree (2006) in Environmental Engineering and Master (2011) in Environmental Technology obtained at the Escola Superior de Tecnologia de Setúbal (High School of Technology in Setúbal). She joins the WavEC in 2005 in the field of Environmental licensing and Assessment. She works mainly in research projects related with the environmental impact assessment and monitoring of environmental issues/impacts, working since 2007 in the field of underwater noise of marine energy.
Currently she is responsible at the WavEC for the FAME project and collaborates in the SOWFIA and SURGE projects. She had also been responsible for the Environmental review of Environmental Impact Studies related with marine energy projects and consultation related with monitoring plans development.

André Moura* (*André is out of the office and will be back in May 2012)

André obtained his bacherlorship in Marine Biology and Oceanography at the University of  Southampton in 2006. In 2007 he joins the WavEC team and collaborates in projects focused on environmental issues, as the Equimar project. Currently he collaborates on the collection of data regarding the Portuguese Pilto Zone.

Luis López

Luis Mallén López has a Master degree of Industrial Engineering from the UPV (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia) and a Master of Coastal and Ports Engineering from the UC (Universidad de Cantabria).
Between 2007 and 2009, Luis worked as a Project Engineer at the WRL (Water Research Laboratory) in Sydney, Australia, mainly in physical modelling projects. From 2009 until 2011, he worked at IH Cantabria in Santander, Spain, where he completed his Master and joined the laboratory team, collaborating in physical modelling projects related to wave energy.
In 2012, Luis has joined the WavEc as the responsible for the field work regarding wave energy devices performance and environmental impacts.

Modeling

Marco Alves

Marco Alves obtained his degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2000 and masters in 2003 at the Instituto Superior Técnico. In 2000 he started his activity in ocean energy at the Technical University in Lisbon in the field of hydrodynamics and numerical modeling of wave energy. Currently he is developing his PhD in Mechanical Engineering. In 2008 he joins the WavEC team being responsible for studies in this area, like the European project CORES.

Miguel Vicente

Miguel Vicente obtained his degree in Physics Engineering in 2004 at Instituto Superior Técnico. In 2008 he obtained a master degree in Electrical Engineering, branch of Systems, Decision and Control, also at I.S.T. In 2009 he joined the WavEC group, collaborating as a researcher on modelling activities. 

 Technology and Monitoring

Miguel Lopes

Miguel Lopes has a degree in Civil Engineering (2005) and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (2011, “Experimental Development of offshore wave energy converters”), both at Instituto Superior Técnico. After his degree he worked in construction engineering and in 2006 went back to IST, doing research on wave energy and wind action on buildings. His PhD, which started Dec/2006, was on the laboratory testing of wave energy converters. He has been one of the starters of the International Network on Offshore Renewable Energy (INORE). In September 2010 he joined WavEC to work in Monitoring, Due Diligence and Strategic Studies of Technologies.

José Cândido

José Cândido has a degree in Oceanography/Meteorology by Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL) and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering by Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). José started his research activity in the field of wave energy in 2001 at Instituto Nacional de Engenharia, Tecnologia e Inovação (INETI). His research initially focused on wave climate and wave energy resource assessment and afterwards on modelling of wave energy devices. Having worked at Instituto de Engenharia Mecânica (IDMEC/IST) for a period of two years, he joined WavEC in 2011 where he is researcher and manager in offshore renewable energy projects. At present he is responsible, among others, for coordinating the TROPOS project.

Kieran Monk

Kieran Monk has a degree in Physics (Cardiff University- 2006) a Masters in Applied and Physical Oceanography (Bangor University- 2008) and is half way through a PhD in Coastal Engineering (Plymouth University) modelling far-field wave shadowing and collective performance optimisation for offshore wave energy converting arrays.

 In 2011 Kieran is taking a sabbatical from his PhD to Join the WaveC team as a resident Engineer at the Pico plant. Kieran’s focus is instrumentation, data analysis and processing, numerical modelling and oceanography at the Pico Plant.

Financial Management

Carla Bacelar

Carla Bacelar obtained her degree in Economics  at the Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (1995), and a postgraduation in Finances at Universidade Católica Portuguesa (2000). Her experience is diversified and includes: management of a Centre specialized in learning mathematic; participation in multidisciplinary teams (projects); management of different departments in companies, including management of teams, budgetary control, procedures.
She started to work in WavEC as financial management and controller, since May 2009.

Secretariat

Catarina Tavares

Catarina obtained in 2007 her degree in Support to Managers at the Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto (High School of Language, Secretary and Accountancy). At the end of 2007 she joins the team, after a period of 9 months of professional internship.