Research Associate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

University of Virginia•Charlottesville, VA

9d•$65,000 - $85,000

About The Position

The University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is hiring three postdoctoral Research Associates for a newly established multidisciplinary research center focused on supercomputer simulations of extreme conditions experienced by hypersonic vehicles and quantifying overall uncertainty. The successful candidate will serve as a software developer in the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Propulsion Laboratory, a participating lab in the Center. The Research Associate will develop and maintain predictive software components, support their integration into the full system, and assist with full-system testing and analysis. The role involves collaboration with a multidisciplinary, multi-university team of engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians building an integrated package that combines predictive software, data analytics, and machine learning. The candidate will work closely with and report to Dr. Xinfeng Gao, and collaborate with the Software Architect to plan and implement integration of software libraries for I/O, adaptive mesh refinement, data assimilation, and AI/ML. The candidate may supervise other postdocs and mentor PhD students in software development and usage.

Requirements

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computational & Applied Mathematics, or a closely related discipline by the start date.
Research experience in computational science and engineering.
Deep expertise in developing high-performance scientific software for massively parallel, heterogeneous supercomputing architectures.
A record of contributing to large-scale simulation codes for cutting-edge engineering applications.
Advanced C++ proficiency and experience with parallel programming models such as MPI and OpenMP.
Hands-on experience with GPU programming using CUDA, HIP, or performance-portability frameworks such as Kokkos or RAJA.
Strong command of numerical methods for partial differential equations, including high-order spatial discretizations, shock-capturing schemes, implicit and explicit time integration, and scalable linear and nonlinear solvers.
Experience with performance profiling, optimization, and scalability analysis on leadership-class computing systems.
Ability to develop complex simulation software within multidisciplinary teams using modern software engineering practices, including version control, continuous integration, automated testing, and code verification and validation.
Effective communication and coordination with computing-facility technical staff.

Nice To Haves

Expertise in physics-based modeling and simulation of compressible and turbulent flows, including DNS, LES, URANS, or hybrid URANS/LES.
Experience with hypersonic flows, especially hypersonic boundary layers, laminar-to-turbulent transition, shock–boundary-layer interactions, thermochemical nonequilibrium, or finite-rate chemistry.
Experience with multi-fidelity modeling strategies, including reduced-order models, data-driven or machine-learning-augmented closures, surrogate modeling, or uncertainty quantification.
Familiarity with multiphase flows, reacting flows, adaptive mesh refinement, or mapped multiblock techniques.
Focused expertise or interest in developing moving mapped multiblock techniques for complex geometries.
Focused expertise or interest in integrating embedded boundary and mapped multiblock techniques with adaptive mesh refinement for high-order CFD algorithms.
Focused expertise or interest in implementing wall-modeled LES and wall-resolved LES for high-speed flows over complex geometries.
Focused expertise or interest in developing space-time parallel algorithms.
Focused expertise or interest in developing quantum algorithms for Boltzmann equations.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain predictive software components.
Support integration of software components into the full system.
Assist with full-system testing and analysis.
Work with the Software Architect to develop and implement software integration plans for libraries supporting I/O, adaptive mesh refinement, data assimilation, and AI/ML.
Collaborate with engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians on the full-system package.
Coordinate with computing-facility technical staff on resource planning, code deployment, and production workflows.
May supervise other postdocs and mentor PhD students in software development and usage.