Aerospace Engineering PhD candidates awarded MICDE fellowship

Congratulations to Aerospace Engineering PhD candidates Anil Yildirim and Guodong Chen on being awarded Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering (MICDE) fellowships. MICDE is the focal point for the wide spectrum of research in computational science and engineering at the University of Michigan. They were chosen because of their exceptional academic record and the outstanding promise of their research in computational sciences. The fellowship also carries a $4,000 stipend, meant to augment other sources of funding.

Anil Yildirim

Anil Yildirim is in Prof. Joaquim Martins’ Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) Laboratory, where state of the art computational techniques are used to study aircraft design configurations. The group actively participates in MICDE programs and the resources offered by MICDE have helped Anil greatly during his studies. Anil’s research focuses on developing robust, efficient, and scalable algorithms for MDO applications. Using these tools, he studies an aircraft that uses boundary layer ingestion for improved aero-propulsive performance. Below is a video demonstrating this design: 

Anil thanks his entire team and especially Prof. Joaquim, R.R.A. Martins, Dr. Charles A. Mader, and Dr. Justin S. Gray for their guidance. He is also thankful to NASA Transformational Tools and Technologies and Advanced Air Transport Technology projects for providing funding. Anil is grateful for being selected as a MICDE fellow, and hopes to give back to the computational research community at the University of Michigan with his research contributions.

Guodong Chen

Guodong Chen is involved in aerodynamic optimization with active numerical error control under Prof. Krzysztof Fidkowski, who he thanks for his support and guidance during his PhD work. Guodong’s project focuses on ensuring the accuracy and reducing the computational cost in aerodynamic optimization problems. The goal of his project is to enable efficient and reliable design processes with minimal human interference. Guodong says it’s an honor to be awarded this fellowship and that it motivates him to further improve his work and achieve excellence in his research.

Congratulations again to Anil Yildirim and Guodong Chen on their achievement and Department of Aerospace Engineering wishes them the best of luck in their future research!