About us
The objects of the Trust are to foster and promote education, training and research to young people in matters connected with or bearing upon marine technology.
Currently, we can support, on average, ten placements annually in a diverse range of companies working in boat and ship design and design engineering, offshore renewables, dockyards and defence services.
The bursaries reflect both the traditional engineering disciplines and emerging areas, including autonomous ships and data-led marine technologies.
We would like to thank all the companies that have given summer internships to our students over the years. We are keen to hear about opportunities to support excellence and genuine need wherever it exists across our sector.
During 2022 and beyond, we will continue to work with our trusted partners and supporters and build new relationships to grow our fund and help to shape the future of our profession. We would welcome your ideas and working with you on this endeavour.
Since 2005, 67 companies and organisations in the marine sector have accommodated students on placements funded by the Marine Technology Trust.
Patron
Sarah Kenny
Sarah Kenny is the Chief Executive for BMT; a leading international scientific and engineering consulting and services business, with deep specialism in maritime. A marine environmental scientist by background, Sarah has worked in maritime science and technology businesses throughout her career.
Sarah serves on the board of Maritime London and is a former Chair of Maritime UK. She is also a member of the UK Defence Innovation Advisory Panel, co-chairs the National Shipbuilding Office SEG group and the Clean Maritime Council and has previously advised the UK Board of Trade.
Sarah holds honorary doctorates from both the University of Portsmouth and the University of Plymouth. She is a Younger Brother of Trinity House and an honorary member of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors.
In recognition of her contributions to the Maritime Industry and Diversity, Sarah was awarded an OBE in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Trustees
R V Ahilan
A Visiting Professor of Power & Energy Engineering at King’s College London, Ahilan leads the energy transition initiative at ABL Group, having previously been CEO of LOC Group.
He was EVP of the Renewables Advisory Division of DNV GL, with strategic and operational responsibility for the world’s largest technical advisory firm in renewable energy formed by the merger of GL Garrad Hassan (of which he was President) and the renewables business of DNV.
As President of GL Garrad Hassan, he led the world’s largest technical consulting firm entirely focused on renewables with >1000 staff. His experience spans both Oil & Gas and Renewables.
Prior to that, his offshore oil & gas career spanning three decades was with GL Noble Denton, where he was President Americas, MD Europe, and MD Advanced Engineering Consulting. He is also a member of the Bank of England’s Decision Maker Panel.
With expertise in hydrodynamics, he has led projects which have set standards and established safety factors for jack-up site assessment, mooring systems (Convenor, ISO 19901-7 until 2006) and marine transportation. He helped develop the marine operations guidelines at industry-leading firm, Noble Denton. He has been an expert witness and technical advisor to lawyers in Norway, UAE and the UK on technically complex cases related to marine operations, drilling rigs and FPSOs.
He is Chairman of the charity Marine Technology Trust which supports industrial placements in the marine industry for UK university students. In addition to this, he is an Advisory Board Member of WavEC Offshore Renewables (Portugal) and was Non-Executive Director of a vertical axis wind turbine company. He is on the Advisory Board of the Leeds Institute of Fluid Dynamics and is an Advisor to EPSRC multi university research programmes in Wave Energy, Extreme Wave Loads, Digital Twins and Acoustics and was Guest Professor at Harbin Engineering University, China (2006-2010).
He is now the Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Power and Energy Engineering at King’s College London.
He holds a BSc (Leeds) and MS (Caltech) in Civil Engineering, a PhD (Cambridge) in Engineering Fluid Mechanics and an MBA (Imperial). He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of both the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology, and the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020.
Ros Blazejczyk
Ros is a naval architect and Managing Partner at Solis Marine Consultants. She specialises in salvage, wreck removal and shipping incident investigation, regularly attending operations worldwide and providing expert evidence for Court and Arbitration hearings. Ros also leads the Solis Marine Engineering team in Singapore on various clean shipping and renewable energy projects. She is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects.
Ros maintains an interest in providing opportunities for young engineers in the maritime sector and is particularly keen on addressing gender diversity in the industry.
Dan Walker
Dan is the SVP for technology and deputy group chief scientist at Rio Tinto. In this role, he is building the capability needed to fully leverage science, technology and innovation to deliver the materials the world needs to drive the energy transition, and to do this in the most sustainable way possible. Dan is also Non Executive Director at Ocean Infinity.
Dan has held senior leadership roles across the energy industry, including vice president of engineering at BP. Dan led engineering teams and capability across BP for the company’s resilient hydrocarbons business and low carbon growth businesses, including offshore wind, hydrogen, CCUS, vehicle electrification, solar and bio. Dan has held other senior leadership roles including establishing and leading the emerging and disruptive technology unit at BP, and leading the team that created the company’s net zero carbon ambition and strategy in 2020. Dan is a chartered mechanical engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Dan is actively engaged in UK national efforts to develop the engineering skills needed to accelerate the energy transition, and is passionate about the development of early career engineers.
Jake Anderson
Jake is a naval architect and the Group Engineering Managing Director at ABL and Longitude Engineering. He has worked on marine design projects across the maritime, renewables and oil and gas industries for nearly 30 years and is presently involved in numerous clean energy production and clean shipping projects. Jake is passionate about need for young engineers in the industry. He is the sponsor of the development programme at ABL that provides the framework and opportunities for engineers in the early stage of their career, and he also recognises the importance of learning from the insights of younger engineers who are the future of the marine industry.
Chloe Fisher
Chloe is a Naval Architect and Project Manager with SEA-KIT International. In this role, she is working on the design and build of hi-tech uncrewed surface vessel solutions for the maritime, ocean science and research industries for deployment in harsh offshore environments. Following graduation from Newcastle University in 2022 with a masters degree in Marine Technology with Naval Architecture, she is now working toward becoming chartered with the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. Additionally, she is an active industry ambassador with organisations such as Maritime UK, working to inspire the next generation of maritime professionals. As a previous beneficiary of the Marine Technology Trust, she is passionate about giving back and supporting the trust in continuing to deliver its aims.
Stephen Turnock
Stephen’s background as an engineer and in particular a Naval Architect working at the University of Southampton helping educate the next generation of maritime engineers has shown him quite how vital it is that students gain experience as early as possible during their degree. As a trustee of the Marine Technology Trust he liaises with the leading UK universities to ensure we support as many students possible each summer.