Diego Siguenza received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2006 from Escuela Superior Politcnica del Litoral, Ecuador, and his master’s degree in renewable energy in 2014 from Newcastle University, United Kingdom. Since 2018, he has been a PhD student in Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering, where he is focusing on new insights into the interaction of the atmospheric boundary layer and wind turbines. More specifically, he is focused on how low-level jets in the atmosphere impact the energy production of scaled-down wind farms. Long-term, he plans to lead the investigation of interdisciplinary projects incorporating other forms of renewables and their nexus with water. He is president of the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Association at Purdue and is mentoring two minority undergraduates on wind energy research. For a six-week summer course on renewable energy for K-12 minority students, Siguenza developed a hands-on project to build wind turbines and connect them with engineering fundamentals. As a future faculty member, he wants to create a comfortable classroom environment and adopt a welcoming communication style to encourage participation. He looks forward to using active learning techniques such as Thinking Aloud Pair Problem Solving (TAPPS) and encouraging students to pair up to explain homework solutions.

Research Interests

Wind Energy