Assistant Professor, Director
Professor Andrienko received his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 2013 and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Wright State University in 2014 under the guidance of Drs. Sergey Surzhikov and Joseph Shang. Andrienko’s research during these studies was related to the advanced computational models of radiation transfer and nonequilibrium thermodynamics in hypersonic flows.
Joining the research group of Professor Iain Boyd as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014, Andrienko concentrated on developing the ab-initio models of chemically reacting nonequilibrium flows from first principles. This included modeling of collisions in the high-temperature air with potential energy surfaces, statistical analysis of the data and implementation in the CFD program codes.
Vishal Sharma
Postdoctoral Researcher
Vishal is working as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the HTGD. He received his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University in 2020 under the supervision of Dr. Klaus Hoffmann. His doctoral work was focused on the development of numerical solvers for simulating non-rectangular electromagnetic applications, such as far-field scattering and EM wave absorption by biological tissues using Runge-Kutta schemes.
Vishal’s research interests include numerical methods in engineering, scientific computing, aerodynamics, computational fluid dynamics and computational electromagnetics. In his free time, Vishal enjoys reading about the latest technological developments in the aerospace and automotive industries.
Varishth Baluckram
Varishth received his B.Sc. from the University of Notre Dame in 2018 and is now working on his Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering. His area of expertise includes kinetic models of small molecules at thermal and hyper-thermal energies.
Alex Fangman
Alex received his B.Sc. degree in aerospace engineering from Missouri S&T in May of 2019. He is currently working on his Ph.D. and has interests in applying the results of state-resolved chemistry into tractable multidimensional simulations. In his free time, Alex enjoys playing tennis, board games, and hiking.
Christian Bourgeois
Christian is a junior aerospace engineering major from Long Beach, California. He has always been fascinated by flight and wants to perfect the science and engineering behind aerodynamics and propulsion systems. He aspires to work for a defense contractor specializing in military aircraft; however, he would also be happy to contribute to the space-focused industry in some fashion as well.
Brendan White
Brendan is a junior majoring in aerospace engineering. He is one of 5 brothers, the oldest of which graduated from A&M with a degree in aerospace engineering in 2015 and now works at NASA. His brother, along with his grandfather, Joe Kerwin, who was an astronaut that flew on the Skylab 2 mission, are the main contributors to his interest in aerospace.
Brendan’s hobbies include reading, running, video games that teach team strategy, and puzzle games. He is also a member of the Texas A&M Singing Cadets, a personal relations group for the University that spreads the school’s reputation through concerts and other performances.
Beth Wei
Beth is a junior aerospace engineering major. She has a passion for aerodynamics and CFD simulations. She is also a member of the TAMU SAE AERO Design Team and Chi Alpha. She enjoys swimming and reading in her free time.