School of Engineering
Showing 1-20 of 85 Results
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Juan J. Alonso
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioProf. Alonso is the founder and director of the Aerospace Design Laboratory (ADL) where he specializes in the development of high-fidelity computational design methodologies to enable the creation of realizable and efficient aerospace systems. Prof. Alonso’s research involves a large number of different manned and unmanned applications including transonic, supersonic, and hypersonic aircraft, helicopters, turbomachinery, and launch and re-entry vehicles. He is the author of over 200 technical publications on the topics of computational aircraft and spacecraft design, multi-disciplinary optimization, fundamental numerical methods, and high-performance parallel computing. Prof. Alonso is keenly interested in the development of an advanced curriculum for the training of future engineers and scientists and has participated actively in course-development activities in both the Aeronautics & Astronautics Department (particularly in the development of coursework for aircraft design, sustainable aviation, and UAS design and operation) and for the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME) at Stanford University. He was a member of the team that currently holds the world speed record for human powered vehicles over water. A student team led by Prof. Alonso also holds the altitude record for an unmanned electric vehicle under 5 lbs of mass.
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Surendra Beniwal
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Aeronautics and Astronautics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsNondestructive Evaluation, Structural Health Monitoring, Micromechanics
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Brian Cantwell
Edward C. Wells Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering
BioProfessor Cantwell's research interests are in the area of turbulent flow. Recent work has centered in three areas: the direct numerical simulation of turbulent shear flows, theoretical studies of the fine-scale structure of turbulence, and experimental measurements of turbulent structure in flames. Experimental studies include the development of particle-tracking methods for measuring velocity fields in unsteady flames and variable density jets. Research in turbulence simulation includes the development of spectral methods for simulating vortex rings, the development of topological methods for interpreting complex fields of data, and simulations of high Reynolds number compressible and incompressible wakes. Theoretical studies include predictions of the asymptotic behavior of drifting vortex pairs and vortex rings and use of group theoretical methods to study the nonlinear dynamics of turbulent fine-scale motions. Current projects include studies of fast-burning fuels for hybrid propulsion and decomposition of nitrous oxide for space propulsion.
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Fu-Kuo Chang
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioProfessor Chang's primary research interest is in the areas of multi-functional materials and intelligent structures with particular emphases on structural health monitoring, intelligent self-sensing diagnostics, and integrated health management for space and aircraft structures as well safety-critical assets and medical devices. His specialties include sensors and sensor network development, built-in self-diagnostics, integrated diagnostics and prognostics, damage tolerance and failure analysis for composite materials, and advanced multi-physics computational methods for multi-functional structures. Most of his work involves system integration and multi-disciplinary engineering in structural mechanics, electrical engineering, signal processing, and multi-scale fabrication of materials. His recent research topics include: Integrated health management for aircraft structures, bio-inspired intelligent sensory materials for fly-by-feel autonomous vehicles, active sensing diagnostics for composite structures, self-diagnostics for high-temperature materials, etc.
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Richard Christensen
Professor (Research) of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus
BioProfessor Christensen's research is concerned with the mechanics of materials. The behavior of polymers and polymeric fiber composites are areas of specialization. Of particular interest is the field of micro-mechanics that focuses on materials' functionality at intermediate-length scales between atomic and the usual macro scale. Applicable techniques involve the methods of homogenization for all types of composite materials. The intended outcomes of his research are useful means of characterizing the yielding, damage accumulation, and failure behavior of modern materials. A related website has been developed to provide critical evaluations for the mathematical failure criteria used with the various classes of engineering materials. Most of these materials types are employed in aerospace structures and products.
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Matthew Clarke
Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, admitted Spring 2017
Stanford Stdnt Employee-Summer, Vice Provost for Graduate EducationBioI am a PhD candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. My research interests include aircraft conceptual design, multi-disciplinary design optimization, multi-fidelity optimization and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop of new strategies for vehicular optimization. These modes of transportation include commercial transport aircraft, supersonic aircraft, and urban on-demand electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles.
In addition to these endeavors, I dedicate time towards addressing socio-economic issues, particularly within academia. Presently, I work on developing STEM curriculum for underrepresented minorities as well as drafting new, synergistic approaches to introducing technology into society. I serve as the president of the Black Engineering Graduate Student Association, a student run organization whose mission is to build a sense of community among and facilitate the professional development and academic success of the black engineering community.
I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Howard University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. In undergrad, my involvement in extracurricular activities nurtured an ability to share information and contribute to decision-making. Outside coursework, I participated in global collaborative competitions geared towards proposing innovative solutions for future transportation. I also led humanitarian missions to Kenya, El Salvador and Haiti with Engineers Without Borders, a non-profit organization that partners with developing communities worldwide to improve their quality of life. These partnerships involved the implementation of sustainable engineering projects such as power, communal infrastructure and access to drinking water.
I am a member of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society; the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).
Following graduate school, I plan to pursue a career in industry focused on research and development of revolutionary air and spacecraft technology. My future aspirations also include teaching and inspiring minority students in STEM. -
Sigrid Close
Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering
BioProf. Close's research involves space weather detection and modeling for improved spacecraft designs, and advanced signal processing and electromagnetic wave interactions with plasma for ground-to-satellite communication systems. These topics fall under the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) umbrella that include environmental remote sensing using satellite systems and ground-based radar. Her current efforts are the MEDUSSA (Meteoroid, Energetics, and Debris Understanding for Space Situational Awareness) program, which uses dust accelerators to understand the effects of hypervelocity particle impacts on spacecraft along with Particle-In-Cell simulations, and using ground-based radars to characterize the space debris and meteoroid population remotely. She also has active programs in hypersonic plasmas associated with re-entry vehicles.
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Simone D'Amico
Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
BioSimone D’Amico is an Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, California, USA. He is founder and director of the Stanford's Space Rendezvous Lab (SLAB). He is a Terman Faculty Fellow of the School of Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Delft (The Netherlands) and received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Politecnico di Milano (Italy). He has been working as researcher at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) from 2003 to 2013 in the fields of space flight dynamics, autonomous satellite navigation and control, spacecraft formation-flying, and on-orbit servicing.
Dr. D’Amico gave key contributions to the design, development, and operations of spacecraft formation-flying and rendezvous missions such as GRACE, TanDEM-X, and PRISMA for which he received several awards. He developed the Spaceborne Autonomous Formation Flying Experiment (SAFE), the Advanced Rendezvous demonstration using GPS and Optical Navigation (ARGON) on PRISMA and the TanDEM-X Autonomous Formation Flying (TAFF) system. More recently he has been working on the design of the GPS-based navigation system for the DEOS and PROBA-3 formation-flying missions. He acted as PI of the Autonomous Vision Approach-Navigation and Target Identification (AVANTI) experiment on-board the FireBIRD mission.
Dr. D'Amico's current research aims at enabling future distributed space systems for unprecedented science and exploration. These include spacecraft formation-flying, rendezvous and docking, swarms and fractionated spacecraft. His efforts lie at the intersection of advanced astrodynamics, GN&C, and space system engineering to fulfill the tight requirements posed by these novel space architectures. The most recent mission concept developed by Dr. D'Amico is a miniaturized distributed occulter/telescope (mDOT) system for direct imaging of exozodiacal dust and exoplanets. Dr. D'Amico is spearheading a gravitational space science and exploration program at Stanford based on multiple drag-free micro-satellites.
He has over 100 scientific publications including conference proceedings, peer-reviewed journal articles, and book chapters. He is peer reviewer for various AIAA and IEEE journals. He has been nominated in 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2013 as Excellent Reviewer for the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics. He has been Programme Committee Member (2008), Co-Chair (2011), and Chair (2013) of the International Symposium on Spacecraft Formation Flying Missions and Technologies. He is Programme Committee Member of the International Workshop on Satellite Constellations and Formation Flying since 2013. He is Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics and the Journal of Space Science and Engineering. He is Associate Member of the Omega Alpha Association for Systems Engineering.
