Jon Mikkelsen

Professor of Teaching and Director of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering

P Eng., B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc. (Univ. of British Columbia)

Selected Awards

• SNAME Faculty Advisor of the Year Award, 2023.
• Peter Larkin Award, 2016.
• Wighton Fellowship, 2006.
• OMAE Conference Appreciation Award, ASME, 2005.

Current Research Work

• Naval Architecture: My involvement with research work in the area of naval architecture/ocean engineering has focused on a variety of projects. These projects include the design of improved hullforms for west coast fishing vessels (the UBC Series) ,  new pusher style barges for use on the west coast, high speed experimental testing of ship models, the study of the hydrodynamics of waterfowl, the development a laser based ship wave measuring system for performing accurate wake surveys, and the study of vertical axis ocean turbines.
• Development of Selective Fishing Gear: A fishing gear research program has been conducted in partnership with several British Columbia First Nations including the Gitksan, Tsimshian, Stó:lō, Wet’suwet’en, and Gitanyow First Nations. This work has resulted in the improved design for selective harvest gear for commercial salmon fishing in British Columbia. These live capture technologies such as “fishwheels” and “fish traps” allow the selective harvest of target species such as Sockeye and Pink salmon while allowing threatened species such as Steelhead and Coho stocks to continue their spawning migration. The development of the fishwheels and fishtraps involved implementing traditional First Nation fishing techniques with modern materials and designs to produce robust and efficient designs for use on rivers and estuaries throughout the west coast.
• Mechanical Design: As a design instructor and faculty advisor to several undergraduate design competition teams, I am directly involved with design teaching in diverse areas such as naval architecture, mechanical systems, and vehicle design. The capstone design program has recently focused on having student design teams develop solutions for industry sponsored design needs. Notable accomplishments include having the 2006 Supermileage vehicle, the Mark V selected by TIME Magazine as a top invention for 2006, and the UBC Sailbot team winning the inaugural autonomous sailboat design challenge

Selected Publications

• Todd Jones, K. S. Van Houtan, B. L. Bostrom, P. Ostafichuk, J. Mikkelsen, E. Tezcan, M. Carey, B. Imlach, and J. A. Seminoff, “Calculating the ecological impacts of animal-borne instruments on aquatic organisms,” Methods in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 4, no. 12, pp. 1178–1186, 2013.
• M. Van der Loos, A. Hodgson, J. Mikkelsen, and M. Fengler, “How Student Reflections Have Guided the Evolution of a Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Course,” Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2013.
• Mikkelsen J., Steeves, A., Cleghorn, W.L., Bastani, P., Pattani, R., Pickles, T., Collaborative Design Practice Involving Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE), Proceedings, Sixth CDEN International Conference on Design Education, Innovation, and Practice, Canadian Design Engineering Network, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 2009.
• Rawlings, G.W., Alidadi, M., Klaptocz, V.R., Nabavi, Y., Mikkelsen, J., Calisal, S.M., Application of End Plates for Vertical Axis Hydro Turbine Performance Enhancement, Proceedings, Eighteenth Pacific/Asia Offshore Mechanics Symposium, Int. Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers, Vancouver, Canada, 2009
• G. Ball, C. G. Jensen, J. Mikkelsen, A. Steeves, M. A. L. Alves, and O. C. Cuitlahuac, “Introducing Multicultural Virtual Collaboration to Engineering Students taking a CAx Applications Course,” in PACE Annual Forum, 2010, p. 17.
• J. Gould, S. M. Calisal, J. Mikkelsen, O. Gören, B. Okan, and Y.-T. Kim, “Powering and Seakeeping Characteristics of a Displacement Vessel Hullform With Waterline Parabolization,” in ASME 2010 29th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, 2010, pp. 819–828.
• Mikkelsen, J., and Muldon, C., Development of a Fishwheel for Use on the Upper Fraser River, Final Report, Fisheries and Oceans – Canada, 2002
• Mikkelsen, J., Technical Review of Four Projects Aimed to Reduce Fossil Fuel Usage in the Canadian Fishing Industry, Final Report, Fisheries and Oceans – Canada, 2002

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