Professor Irene Penesis is the Research Director for the Blue Economy CRC-Co Ltd. Irene’s passion for a transition to renewable energy, environmental sustainability and decarbonisation of marine and maritime industries led her to developing the successful application to the Commonwealth’s CRC program. Since taking up the role of Research Director in July 2019, Irene has established five multi-disciplinary research programs, a brilliant research leadership team, and collaboratively with their 40 industry, research and government partners commissioned over $20 million in research projects in areas such as offshore engineering and naval architecture (e.g. hydrogen vessels, multi-use offshore structures), autonomous vehicles, marine renewable energy technologies, microgrids, hydrogen production and storage, environmental site characterisation, selection and monitoring, supply chains, and regulation and policy. Irene is on the Steering Committee’s of the Tasmanian Government’s Renewable Energy Action Plan and the Western Australian Wave Energy Research Centre. Irene is on secondment from the University of Tasmania where she led several industry and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) funded wave and tidal energy projects, led a multi-disciplinary research team working in the field of marine renewable energy and contributed to educating maritime engineering students, at the Australian Maritime College – National Centre for Maritime Engineering and Hydrodynamics.
