Friends of MOBY,

After the weekend has wrapped up, I wanted to share a proud moment for the MOBY team. This past Friday, our co-founder and CTO, Nate Clemett, successfully defended his PhD dissertation in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Dissertation title:

Probabilistic Operational Envelopes and Risk-Aware Routing for Autonomous Ships

This novel work in autonomous maritime systems brings together naval architecture, physics, mathematics, and machine learning. It represents years of research into how autonomous ships can safely operate in the real world and how they learn and adapt their limits over time.

In addition to his academic achievements, Nate combines deep technical expertise with extensive real-world offshore experience, designing autonomous systems and personally deploying them in some of the most challenging ocean environments.

Before and alongside his PhD, Nate has:

• Built and operated a swarm of micro wave buoys to study hurricane intensity via aerial deployments into active hurricanes from NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft

• Built and personally deployed wave-measurement buoys during a month-long expedition in the Gulf of Alaska, working in Arctic storms with waves up to 60 feet to study wave behavior in extreme conditions

• Led the development of a flywheel-based stabilization system that reduced ship roll by 90 percent on a model vessel

• Developed AI-based tools for Navy ships to estimate fuel usage and adjust operations for efficiency and safety

• Designed and operated autonomous, subsea, and wave-energy systems for Navy-funded research

• Earned two master’s degrees (one in marine robotics & naval architecture and one in marine engineering) and holds a bachelor’s degree in applied physics

Beyond his technical work, Nate has spent years as a professional yacht captain, sailing extensively throughout the Mediterranean and Caribbean and completing a 21-day transatlantic crossing. He is extremely passionate about the ocean and has shared that with others through instructing sailing and kiteboarding.

Very few people combine this level of offshore experience, real-world robotics expertise, and advanced technical training. We are fortunate to have Nate at the helm of MOBY as our CTO.

One final note: while I will never claim to grasp the full depth of Nate’s technical work, I do see firsthand the growing number of exceptional engineers eager to join him and the team he’s built at MOBY. We have already onboarded outstanding talent across mechanical engineering and robotics, and the momentum continues to build.

2026 is going to be a big year.