About the Author

Maija Benitz is an Associate Professor of Engineering at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI. She has a BA in Physics from Colorado College, and a Masters and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While at UMass, she held dual appointments as a graduate research assistant in the Multiphase Flow Simulation Lab and the Wind Energy Center, where her dissertation focused on simulating offshore floating wind turbines using computational fluid dynamics. Before joining RWU she spent time doing research at NREL’s National Wind Technology Center in Boulder, CO and teaching at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. At RWU she teaches across the curriculum, from first-year introductory courses to upper-level electives such as Ocean Hydrodynamics and Wind Turbine Design.