Dr. Jason Jonkman joined the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 2000 and leads the wind turbine multi-physics engineering tool development activities, including the FAST software for modeling the dynamic response of land- and offshore-based wind turbines. He also guides projects aimed at verifying, validating, and applying engineering tools to wind turbine design and analysis. Jason currently co-chairs an International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind research task on developing, verifying, and validating simulation models for offshore wind turbines. He is the principle investigator for a Department-of-Energy (DOE)-funded project to improve the modeling of floating offshore wind system dynamics. He also is a U.S. representative on the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) working group to develop an international technical specification for the design of floating offshore wind turbines.
Prior to joining NREL, Jason worked as a researcher at DOE’s Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at Colorado State University and as a tool design engineer at the commercial airplane division of Boeing. Jason obtained a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from University of Colorado, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University, and a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Dordt College.