Innovators' Corner: US Innovator Dr. Jeremy Simmons supporting Blackfish as DOE ORISE Fellow
- Elaine Sherriffs
- 44 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Bridging research and industry in marine renewable energy
Jeremy Simmons II builds things. It's what
drew him to mechanical engineering, what shaped his PhD research, and what brought him to Blackfish Engineering as an ORISE Marine Energy Fellow funded by
January 2026.
"I get most excited about designing and building systems," Jeremy explains. "Systems are ultimately what get things done but they require a lot of intentional thought to work well."
That combination - hands-on capability paired with rigorous systems thinking - defines both Jeremy's background and his fit with Blackfish's approach to engineering.
A DOE Investment in the Talent Pipeline
Jeremy joins Blackfish through the DOE Marine Energy Fellowship Program, a fellowship administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) and funded by the DOE's Water Power Technologies Office. The program places emerging researchers with industry partners to accelerate the translation of marine energy technology from laboratory to market.
Jon Powell, MD of Blackfish highlights that "After 10 years of success helping marine-energy innovators develop their technologies - hosting an ORISE fellow represents a natural extension of the firm's commitment to technical excellence in the marine renewable energy sector. For Jeremy, it's an opportunity to learn from our diverse team of engineers and our long background of success supporting innovators." Learn more about Blackfish's origin from the early work at Tidal Generation Limited.
Jeremy shared that he "feels privileged to be embedded with Blackfish during this fellowship,". "My long-term goal is to help get important technology to market and that's exactly what Blackfish is doing. I'm impressed with their rigor in understanding the design problems they are presented with and their capacity to execute."
ORISE is managed by ORAU under DOE contract number DE-SC0014664.
From Hydraulics to Hardware-in-the-Loop
Jeremy's path to Blackfish runs through a decade of progressively deeper engagement with dynamic systems and hydraulic power.
He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 2024, where his thesis focused on wave-powered reverse osmosis desalination - a technology at the intersection of marine energy and water security. The work produced five peer-reviewed publications and U.S. Patent 11,731,081, co-invented with his doctoral advisor James Van de Ven, covering a hydraulic power circuit architecture.
But Jeremy's expertise extends well beyond wave energy. His postdoctoral work included designing and commissioning a hardware-in-the-loop testbed for marine energy systems, as well as contributing to medical device development - designing compression, mixing, and delivery systems for an emergency hypoxia treatment. Both projects demanded the same core competencies: understanding complex dynamic systems, designing for real-world constraints, and validating that what you build actually works.
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Before graduate school, Jeremy gained industry experience through engineering internships at Hutchinson Technology, Caterpillar, and Kimberly-Clark, where he encountered the realities of manufacturing, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement in high-volume production environments. He also contracted with Resolute Marine Energy on wave-powered desalination R&D and spent a year as an ORISE fellow at the National Renewable Energy Lab studying pipeline dynamics in marine energy systems.
This cross-sector experience - heavy equipment, consumer products, medical devices, renewable energy - gives Jeremy a perspective that pure marine energy specialists often lack. He's seen how mature industries approach verification and validation (V&V), and he understands what it takes to move from a working prototype to a reliable, manufacturable system.
Jeremy summarises his approach:
“I get most excited about designing and building systems. Systems are ultimately what get things done but they require a lot of intentional thought to work well."
Systems Thinking Across Disciplines
What connects these varied experiences is a consistent focus on systems-level engineering. Jeremy doesn't just model components; he thinks about how systems behave, how they fail, and how to design them so they don't.
"The cutting edge of technology is an integration of so many disciplines and systems," he observes. "There's a lot of room for creativity but also a need for rigour."
This perspective aligns closely with Blackfish's Verification and Validation work, where understanding the full system - not just individual components - is essential to de-risking complex marine energy projects.Â
"I value thinking across disciplines," Jeremy adds. "And that's what attracts me to working with control systems and processes; even though I'm a mechanical engineer by training, which is already a broad discipline, it gets to touch so many other domains."
That builder's instinct shows up outside work too. Jeremy has built his own compute cluster for running engineering simulations, restored a salvage-title vehicle, and - in perhaps the most precise project of all - made his and his wife's wedding rings by hand.
What Comes Next
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During his fellowship, Jeremy will contribute to Blackfish's business development work while applying his technical expertise to the firm's marine energy projects. It's a role that matches his stated goal: broadening his perspective on how engineering consultancies help clients bring technology to market.
"I've been intentional about broadening my perspective in engineering," he says. "Working on the customer-facing side of an engineering consultancy is part of that."
For Blackfish, Jeremy brings deep expertise in hydraulic systems, dynamic modelling, and hardware validation - capabilities that complement the firm's existing strengths in systems engineering and V&V. For Jeremy, Blackfish offers a front-row seat to the rigorous engineering processes that turn promising concepts into commercial reality.
With multiple marine energy technologies approaching commercial readiness, the industry needs engineers who can bridge the gap between research and deployment. Jeremy Simmons represents exactly that profile: a researcher who builds, a systems thinker who gets his hands dirty, and an engineer ready to help bring important technology to market..
Jeremy Simmons II is an ORISE Fellow at Blackfish Engineering Design Ltd., supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. Connect with him on LinkedIn.