Charlotte Lafleur

Coming from a water engineering degree, Charlotte has expertise in hydraulics, ocean engineering, and hydrodynamics. She completed her bachelor of engineering in Quebec City, at Laval University, where she focused her research on echo-sounding technology and data analysis, ice rheology and river ice management structures. While the latter research topic led her to design an ice-retaining structure to prevent flooding in Sainte-Anne River, Quebec City, the first two subjects were aimed at understanding animal behavior, and the creation of polynyas in the Arctic sea. To bring her knowledge to practice, she took part in the Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen scientific mission of 2015 in the Northwest Passage.   

Now focusing her research on a broader system-level engineering, the master’s student is designing energy systems for remote communities under the supervision of Curran Crawford at the University of Victoria, and for the research group PRIMED. She is mostly interested in coastal diesel-dependent communities that wish to move forward to a hybrid system. While she always considers more traditional forms of renewable energy generation in her designs, off-shore energy technologies, including wave energy converters, wind, and tidal generators, are often part of the solution.