NAVSEA Sponsors Summer Naval Surface Ship Design Program

The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has created a Summer Naval Surface Ship Design program in cooperation with the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Michigan. The program will run from May 1 to June 16 and will include professors from the University of Michigan, the Naval Post Graduate School, Virginia Tech and instructors from NAVSEA’s Engineering Future Concepts and Surface Ship Design, Ship Costing, and Combat Systems Groups. “A large part of the Navy’s civilian naval architects and engineers will be retiring in the next decade. We will face a shortage of these skilled professionals and we need to ensure that we recruit a new generation of architects and engineers with the right skills to design and build warships for the 21st Century Navy,” said James Webster, a Senior Naval Architect who works in the Future Concepts and Surface Ship Design Group at NAVSEA. The idea for the course began as the Navy became concerned about the aging of the ship design workforce and the overall health of the naval engineering field. Current education in the field of naval architecture and marine engineering produces excellent candidates for employment in the field of naval engineering, but specific training in the unique aspects of naval ship design, including naval systems design, is either lacking or significantly outdated. A new series of courses is being offered at the graduate level on the unique aspect of naval ship design. The Summer Naval Surface Ship Design program is taught is conjunction with instructors from NAVSEA, Univ. of Michigan, Virginia Tech and the Naval Post Graduate School. The seven courses taught are: Naval Architecture Overview, Naval Ship Design, Warfare Systems, Ship Support Systems, Naval System Architecture/Systems Engineering, Multiple Objective Optimization, ASSET Training, Capstone Naval Surface Ship Design.

“The students in this course will gain real-world experience in working on an actual warship design. They will be taught by professionals who design state of the art surface combatants using the latest US Navy design tools and practices. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for someone interested in the field,” said Webster. The course will be limited to no more than 30 students on first come basis . Candidates for the course can come from a variety of disciplines including: naval architecture, marine engineering, systems engineering, mechanical engineering and civil engineering. Students who complete the course will have an opportunity to participate in paid internship programs.

By Naval Sea Systems Command Office of Corporate Communications Source: NAVSEA