Kirby S. Heck

Greetings! My name is Kirby. I completed my PhD in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). My research focuses on fluid mechanics and turbulence for engineering applications, with an emphasis on sustainable energy generation such as wind and tidal turbines and atmospheric flows. I use computational models such as large-eddy simulations to build reduced-order engineering models, and collaborate with experimentalists to validate these models. As a graduate student at MIT, I was involved with the CEE Graduate Committee and mentored the MIT Wind team.

Outside of the lab, you can find me running along the Charles River, rock climbing, or hiking in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Prior to my graduate studies at MIT, I worked for the US National Park Service in Colorado, Wyoming, and Alaska, and I completed my B.S. in Engineering Mechanics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Recent news

2026 Oct Our study on rotor modeling in confined flows was published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics!

2026 Sept Our study on wind turbine performance at full dynamic similarity was published in PNAS Nexus!

2026 Aug I defended my PhD thesis, which won the 2026 MIT CEE Best thesis award!

2026 Aug I was awarded a Director's postdoctoral fellowship from the National Laboratory of the Rockies

2026 Jun Our paper on wake interactions with the atmosphere was published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics: Flow!

2025 Nov I presented our work at APS DFD 2025 in Houston, TX

2025 Nov I gave a seminar "Flow physics, modeling, and optimization of wind energy systems" to the MIT Energy and Climate club

2025 Oct I presented our work at NAWEA / Windtech 2025

2025 Sept I led our Build a Wind Turbine activity at Cambridge Science Festival, which was featured in The Tech

News archive

2025 May I completed the Kaufman Teaching Certificate Program at MIT

2025 Mar Our paper was published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics!

2025 Feb I presented our work at the 2025 MIT CEE research day

2025 Feb The Unified Momentum Model was highlighted by Windtech International

2025 Jan MIT Wind advanced to the finals of the Collegiate Wind Competition

2024 Dec I was featured in an MIT CEE student spotlight

2024 Nov I presented a talk at the 77th meeting of APS DFD in Salt Lake City, UT

2024 Sept I presented a poster at the 2024 MITEI Annual Research Conference

2024 Aug Our paper was published in Nature Communications and highlighted by MIT News!

2024 May I presented my work at TORQUE 2024 in Florence, Italy

2024 Apr MIT Wind was interviewed as a part of the 2024 Edgerton Teams showcase

2024 Mar I gave a talk for the MIT CEE Graduate Student Seminar series

2023 Nov I presented my work at the 76th meeting of APS DFD in Washington, DC

2023 Oct I was interviewed for an MIT News segment entitled Comm Lab Voices

2023 June I presented my work at WESC 2023 in Glasgow, UK

2023 May I was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!

2022 Nov I presented my work at the 75th meeting of APS DFD in Indianapolis, IN

2022 Mar My team's capstone project was selected for NIAC Phase I grant and highlighted by UW-Madison news

2021 Sept Alaska to Boston! I finished my internship at Denali National Park and started my PhD at MIT with Michael Howland

2021 May I graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in B.S. Engineering Mechanics

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