MEET The Team

Center Leadership

James VanZwieten

Center Director and Associate Professor

Dr. James H. VanZwieten Jr. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering at Florida Atlantic University and the Director of Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center (SNMREC), where he focuses on marine renewable energy, numerical simulation, autonomous controls, and oceanographic measurements. He holds a Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering from FAU. He has led and contributed to research projects advancing the understanding and modeling of ocean current energy systems, including turbine performance and resource assessment for marine energy extraction. At SNMREC, Dr. Van Zwieten applies his expertise in modeling and engineering to support the development of technologies for harnessing energy from ocean currents and mentors students in related research.

Gabriel Alsenas

Associate Director

Gabriel Alsenas is the Associate Director of the Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center (SNMREC) at Florida Atlantic University, where he leads efforts to advance the science and technology of extracting renewable energy from ocean resources such as currents and thermal gradients. He joined SNMREC in 2007 after earning his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Ocean and Systems Engineering from FAU, and previously worked as a graduate student engineer in ocean engineering. Under his leadership, the center has undertaken pioneering projects to test and demonstrate marine energy technologies and collaborates with industry, academia, and government to support commercial marine renewable energy development.

Yufei Tang

Associate Director and Associate Professor

Dr. Yufei Tang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University and the Associate Director of the Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center (SNMREC). He also directs FAU’s Florida Power & Light Company Center for Intelligent Energy Technologies (InETech) at the College of Engineering and Computer Science and is affiliated with the I-SENSE Institute. His research focuses on artificial intelligence, physics-informed machine learning, and data-driven modeling for complex engineering systems, with applications in marine renewable energy, including wave and marine current energy technologies.