News and recognition
Research updates, recognition and media coverage. For questions about a study, contact Richard Stevens.
2026 news
- : The University of Twente reports on Davide Selvatici and Richard Stevens’ cloud and wind-farm wake research in “Cloud cover helps offshore wind farms”. The paper was also selected for the cover of PRX Energy, volume 5, issue 3. The study identifies faster far-wake recovery through cloud-top cooling in the simulated conditions; confirmation at sea remains necessary. Coverage of the same study also appeared in Knowridge (4 October) and Sustainable Stories Africa (5 October).
- September 2026: The University of Twente’s Faculty of Science & Technology highlighted the Physics Magazine coverage on LinkedIn of Davide Selvatici and Richard Stevens’ PRX Energy study of clouds and wind-farm wakes.
- 2 September 2026: Physics Magazine, published by the American Physical Society, featured Davide Selvatici and Richard Stevens’ PRX Energy paper in “The Effect of Clouds on Wind Farms”. The simulations show how cloud-top radiative cooling can accelerate wake recovery under the studied conditions. Read about the study or the paper in PRX Energy 5, 033014 (2026).
- 22–24 April 2026: Richard Stevens co-chaired EUROMECH Colloquium 669, “Recent advances in turbulent wind-farm dynamics,” at Imperial College London with Michael Hölling, under chair Oliver Buxton. The ERCOFTAC meeting report describes the scientific programme. Explore the related wind-farm flow research.
- 12 February 2026: Congratulations to Dr. Davide Selvatici for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Clouds, atmospheric turbulence and their interaction with wind farms”, at the University of Twente on 12 February 2026.
- 2026: Richard Stevens has been appointed Associate Editor of Wind Energy Science, covering fluid mechanics and wind and the atmosphere.
- 2026: Richard Stevens co-authored the EAWE Grand Challenges review “Impact of atmospheric turbulence on performance and loads of wind turbines: knowledge gaps and research challenges”, Wind Energy Science 11, 509–555. The complete citation lists all authors.
News archive
2025
- Congratulations to Dr. Yang Liu for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Dynamic wind and wake effects in wind farms: Simulations and modeling”, at the University of Twente on 10 December 2025.
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Congratulations to Dr. Jens Kasper for successfully defending his PhD thesis, "Large-scale interactions between wind farms and the atmosphere" on Friday, September 12, 2025.
Interview featuring Jens is available at the PhD defence announcement.
2024
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JRSE selected our article as a Feature Article in October 2024:
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J.H. Kasper, A. Stieren, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
Simulation and modeling of wind farms in baroclinic atmospheric boundary layers,
J. Renew. Sustain. Energy 16 (6), 063302 (2024).
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J.H. Kasper, A. Stieren, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
- Davide Selvatici from my group won the Young Scientist Prize at the 1st European Fluid Dynamics Conference (September 2024).
- Recipient of the inaugural 2024 WES Outstanding Reviewer Award (May 2024).
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Congratulations to Dr. Guru Sreevanshu Yerragolam for successfully defending his PhD thesis, "Sheared thermal convection" on Friday, February 23, 2024.
Interview featuring Vanshu is available at the PhD defence announcement,
2023
- Received an ERC consolidator grant for the WINDFLOW unlocking the complexities of wind farm-atmosphere interaction (November 2023).
- Visualization of my high Ra number simulations is featured on the Physics Today cover (November 2023).
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Congratulations to Dr. Robert Hartmann for successfully defending his PhD thesis, "Rotation and confinement in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection," on October 6, 2023.
Interview featuring Robert is available at the PhD defence announcement,
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Invited Journal of Fluid Mechanics Focus on Understanding wind farm power densities (January 2023).
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R.J.A.M. Stevens,
Understanding wind farm power densities,
J. Fluid Mech. 958, F1 (2023).
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R.J.A.M. Stevens,
2022
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APS Physics, “Wind Farms Perform Under Pressure” (23 September 2022), featured our results.
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A. Stieren, J.H. Kasper, S.N. Gadde, and R.J.A.M. Stevens,
Impact of Negative Geostrophic Wind Shear on Wind Farm Performance,
PRX Energy 1, 023007 (2022).
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A. Stieren, J.H. Kasper, S.N. Gadde, and R.J.A.M. Stevens,
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Congratulations to Dr. Anja Stieren for successfully defending her PhD thesis "Large-eddy simulations of the interaction between wind farms and mesoscale effects" on Friday September 30th, 2022.
Interview featuring Anja is available at the PhD defence announcement,
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Congratulations to Dr. Martin Assen for successfully defending his PhD thesis "Wake-induced dynamics of anisotropic particles in homogeneous and shear flows" on September 1, 2022.
Interview featuring Martin is available at the PhD defence announcement,
- Awarded the UT Social Media Award (January 2022).
2021
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Congratulations to Dr. Jessica Strickland for successfully defending her PhD thesis "Modeling wakes and blockage in large-scale wind farms" on Thursday december 2nd, 2021.
Interview featuring Jessica is available at the PhD defence announcement,
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Phys. Rev. Fluids selected our paper below as editorial suggestion
- L. Liu, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
Enhanced wind-farm performance using windbreaks,
Phys. Rev. Fluids 6, 074611 (2021).
Science News: “Windbreaks, surprisingly, could help wind farms boost power output” (10 August 2021)
APS Physics: “Windbreaks May Improve Wind Farm Power” (30 July 2021)
Featured in Welt der Physik
Featured in Wissenschaft Aktuell
Featured by “Illustreret Videnskab”
- L. Liu, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
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J. Renew. Sustain. Energy selected our paper below as featured article
- S.N. Gadde, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
Effect of low-level jet height on wind farm performance,
J. Renew. Sustain. Energy 13, 013305 (2021).
Featured by AIP publishing
Featured by University of Twente
Featured by De Ingenieur
Featured by Technisch Weekblad
- S.N. Gadde, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
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Our Renewable Energy paper
- L. Liu, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
Effects of atmospheric stability on the performance of a wind turbine located behind a three-dimensional hill,
Renewable Energy 175 926-935 (2021).
Featured by NemoKennislink
Featured by University of Twente
Featured by Interesting Engineering
- L. Liu, R.J.A.M. Stevens,
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Congratulations to Dr. Srinidhi Nagarada Gadde for successfully defending his PhD thesis "Large eddy simulations of stratified atmospheric boundary layers and wind farms" On Wednesday May 19th 2021.
Interview featuring Srinidhi is available at the PhD defence announcement,
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Congratulations to Dr. Pieter Berghout for successfully defending his PhD thesis "Wall-bounded turbulence with streamwise curvature" On Friday January 15th 2021.
Interview featuring Pieter is available at the PhD defence announcement,
Earlier news and recognition
- Interview in UToday
- Member of the Young Academy at the University of Twente
- Invited speaker at the DPG spring meeting in Regensburg.
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Congratulations to Dr. Alexander Blass for successfully defending his PhD thesis "Sheared Rayleigh-Bénard Turbulence" On Thursday September 10th 2020.
Interview featuring Alexander is available at the PhD defence announcement,
- Invited Guest Editor for the Special Issue on “Fluid Mechanics and Turbulence in Wind Farms” in Energies.
- Received an ERC Starting Grant for research on highly turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection and the transition to the ultimate regime.
- Alexander Blass won the Science Communication Poster Prize at Physics@Veldhoven.
- Alexander Blass won second prize in the 2018 AFMS video competition and third prize in the 2018 AFMS photo competition (Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society gallery) and was a finalist in the Supercomputing 2018 Visualization Showcase.
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Phys. Rev. Lett. selected our paper
- X. Zhu, V. Mathai, R.J.A.M. Stevens, R. Verzicco, and D. Lohse, Transition to the ultimate regime in two-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard convection, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 144502 (2018).
- X. Zhu, V. Mathai, R.J.A.M. Stevens, R. Verzicco, and D. Lohse, Transition to the ultimate regime in two-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard convection, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 144502 (2018).
- Organizer, with Prof. Greg Voth, of the "Structures in turbulent flows" symposium at the Annual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science will be hosted by IMDEA Materials Institute on October 10th-12th, 2018 in the Leganés (Madrid, Spain) campus of the Carlos III University of Madrid
- Organizer International Conference on Rayleigh-Bénard Turbulence at the University of Twente 14-18 May 2018.
- Congratulations to Dr. Xiaojue Zhu for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Taylor-Couette and Rayleigh-Bénard turbulence: the role of the boundaries”, cum laude at the University of Twente on 16 February 2018. UT report.
- Selected in the top 25 of the New Scientist Wetenschapstalent 2017 competition.
- Our article Flow Structure and Turbulence in Wind Farms, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 49, 311-339 (2017), was featured by Knowable Magazine: “Bumpy air boosts wind power” (30 November 2017), from Annual Reviews.
- Alexander Blass won the 2017 SURFsara Visualization Competition.
- Congratulations to Dr. Luis “Tony” Martínez-Tossas on completing his PhD at Johns Hopkins University in 2017, with the thesis “Large Eddy Simulations and Theoretical Analysis of Wind Turbine Aerodynamics Using an Actuator Line Model”.
- Interview in ERCOFTAC Quarterly Newsletter (September 2016)
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NWO STW VIDI grant (May 2016).
Press release by NWO and coverage by STW, UT news, and FOM
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SHELL-NWO/FOM Computational sciences for energy research (CSER) tenure track grant (March 2016).
Press release by FOM and coverage by UT news.
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Winner of the 2015 Corrsin-Kovasznay Outstanding Paper award (March 2016).
Press release by Johns Hopkins. - 3TU Research Centre Fluid & Solid Mechanics (FSM) international travel award for junior research staff.
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Awarded the FOM Young Energy Scientist Fellowship in April 2012; fellowship period May 2012–August 2016.
Press release by FOM and coverage by UT news, and UT news.
- Invited "Huiskamerlezing" by OCW for the National Science Weekend (October 2015).
- Congratulations to Dr. Erwin van der Poel for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Structures, boundary layers and plumes in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection”, at the University of Twente on 3 July 2015.
- Congratulations to Dr. Rodolfo Ostilla Mónico for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Highly turbulent Taylor-Couette flow: direct numerical simulations”, at the University of Twente on 20 February 2015.
- Wind farm visualizations of our simulations performed by David Bock selected as one of the best "Visualization showcases" at XSEDE 2014.
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Press release from the
HPC wire on our wind-farm simulations.
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Press release from the
San Diego Computing Center on our wind-farm simulations.
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The Journal of Fluid Mechanics featured our paper
- Large-eddy simulation study of the logarithmic law for second and higher-order moments in turbulent wall-bounded flow, R.J.A.M. Stevens, M. Wilczek, C. Meneveau, J. Fluid Mech. 757, 888-907 (2014)
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AIP and FOM highlighted our paper
- Large eddy simulation studies of the effects of alignment and wind farm length, R.J.A.M. Stevens, D. F. Gayme, C. Meneveau, J. of Renewable and Sustainable Energy 6, 023105 (2014)
- Overijssel PhD award 2012 (the best PhD dissertation in 2011 at the University of Twente, 5000 Euro, November 2012), see press release by UT.
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EUROTHERM Young Scientist Prize 2012 (2500 Euro, September 2012, awarded once per 4 years).
See UT news and UT news - Second place in the international DSM Science & Technology Awards North (Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) 2012 (€5000, June 2012).
- Winner of the national DSM Science & Technology Awards 2012 (June 2012).
- Finalist in the ECCOMAS PhD competition (March 2012).
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ERCOFTAC da Vinci Award: Prize for best PhD thesis on fluid dynamics in Europe (October 2011).
See press release by FOM and University of Twente. -
PhD degree cum laude (June 2011).
See Mesa+ interview PhD work. -
New J. of Phys. selected our paper
- Optimal Prandtl number for heat transfer in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection, R.J.A.M. Stevens, H.J.H. Clercx, D. Lohse, New J. Phys. 12, 075005 (2010),
See video abstract of this work. -
FOM press release (in Dutch) on our paper
- Flow reversals in thermally driven turbulence, K. Sugiyama, R. Ni, R.J.A.M. Stevens, T.S Chan, S.-Q Zhou, H.-D. Xi, C. Sun, S. Grossmann, K.-Q Xia, and D. Lohse, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 034503 (2010)
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FOM press release (in Dutch) on our papers
- Transitions between turbulent states in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection, R.J.A.M. Stevens, J.-Q. Zhong, H.J.H. Clercx, G. Ahlers, and D. Lohse, Physical Review Letters 103, 024503 (2009).
- Prandtl-, Rayleigh-, and Rossby-Number dependence of heat transport in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection, J.-Q. Zhong, R.J.A.M. Stevens, H.J.H. Clercx, R. Verzicco, D. Lohse and G. Ahlers, Physical Review Letters, 102, 044502 (2009).
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Phys. Rev. Lett. selected our paper
- Prandtl-, Rayleigh-, and Rossby-Number dependence of heat transport in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection, J.-Q. Zhong, R.J.A.M. Stevens, H.J.H. Clercx, R. Verzicco, D. Lohse and G. Ahlers, Physical Review Letters, 102, 044502 (2009).
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Shell Masterprize: Prize for best thesis on sustainable development and energy at a Dutch university (5000 Euro, March 2009).
See press release University of Twente.
See news Eindhoven University.