Michael Howland is a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses on the optimal design, control, and predictive forecasting of wind farms under the direction of Professors John Dabiri and Sanjiva Lele. His present research utilizes operational wind farm data to inform and drive real-time optimization of utility scale wind farms. His optimal control proposals are currently being used by a large-scale wind farm operator in Canada and the United States.

Michael grew up outside of Philadelphia, PA before attending Johns Hopkins University for his undergraduate studies. At JHU, he worked with Professor Charles Meneveau on the NSF funded international wind energy research collective WINDINSPIRE. He graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2016 and completed a MS in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford in 2018. He was the recipient of the Robert George Gerstmyer Award, the Creel Family Teaching Award, the James F. Bell award, and the Tau Beta Pi scholarship from his undergraduate studies and was the recipient of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the Stanford Graduate Fellowship to support his Ph.D. studies.