Meet The Team

Myles Bohon is a guest professor in the Chair of Pressure Gain Combustion at the Technische Universität Berlin, Institute of Fluid Dynamics and Technical Acoustics since 2019. He completed his Ph.D. from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2016 focusing on formation of NOx in oxygenated fuels. After his Ph.D., he began a post-doc at TUB developing the rotating detonation combustion research group there. His research interests include the fundamental and experimental aspects of detonation, rotating detonation, and pressure gain combustion. Additionally, he is interested in more fundamental aspects of combustion and reacting flows with respect to chemical kinetics, plasma, and unsteady processes.

Oliver Paschereit is heading the Chair of Fluid Dynamics, Hermann-Föttinger-Institut, TU Berlin since 2003. His research and teaching covers a broad spectrum of topics related to fluid mechanics and combustion technology: flow and combustion control, vessel aerodynamics, gas turbine technology, ultra-low NOx combustion, thermoacoustics, pressure gain combustion and wind turbine technology. Before moving to TU Berlin, Oliver Paschereit was holding an upper management position at ABB / ALSTOM in Switzerland which he joined in 1994. From 1992 – 1994 he worked on high-speed train acoustics and helped to substantially reduce train noise. After his studies at TU Berlin and Ecole Centrale de Lyon he received his PhD in 1992 from TU Berlin and the University of Arizona. His work in industry on clean, efficient and reliable gas turbines had major impact during the commissioning of several new gas turbine families. The developed methods and technologies paved the way for ultra-low emission gas turbine systems and are to a large extend state of the art of nowadays power generation technology. Future technologies like ultra-wet gas turbine cycles and the integration of constant volume combustion into gas turbines complete his profile. His research activities on fluid dynamics have impact on efficient trucks, cars and trains and were used even in the America’s Cup. Innovative solutions are also applied to wind turbines and general fluid dynamics. They range from smart flow visualization techniques, custom-made power boost devices helping to raise the power output of wind turbines and the development of smart blades for the wind turbines of the future. His work on fluidic nozzles helped to understand and to optimize the mixing process.

His scientific and technology achievements are demonstrated by more than 500 journal and conference publications. The research has not only academic interest but was also important for industrial applications documented in over 80 patent publications. A number of best paper awards, many research prices, the Silver Medal of the Combustion Institute, two ERC Advanced Grants – the highest European research price – and a Proof-of-Concept Grant underline his competence in combustion and fluid dynamics.

Prof. Antonio Andreini, is Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering (DIEF) of the University of Florence. His main research topics is the high-fidelity CFD modelling of heat transfer and combustion in turbomachinery. In the last 15 years He has participated to more than 15 EU research programs, and to several R&D programs funded by the industry. Since 2008 he has supervised or co-supervised about 20 PhD researches. Currently he is coordinating two large Horizon Europe projects focused on innovative gas turbine combustion technologies for hydrogen and an ITN Marie Curie network centred on Pressure Gain Combustion technologies.

He maintains academic research relations with some important Universities and Research Centers (TU Berlin, CORIA, CERFACS, KIT, ENSMA, TU Munich, EM2C Lab), and he is author of more than 220 papers, all published on peer reviewed journals or on proceedings of international conferences with peer review.

XiaoCheng Mi is a tenured Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He received his PhD degree in the Shock Wave Physics Group (SWPG) at McGill University in 2018. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge (2018-2020) and McGill University (2020-2021).  XiaoCheng received the John H.S. Lee Young Investigator Award at the 27th International Colloquium for Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems (ICDERS) in 2019 and founded the Young Researchers’ Forum on Detonation (YRF-Det) in 2020. XiaoCheng’s expertise is in modeling metal combustion and gaseous/condensed-phased detonation.

Jeroen van Oijen is full professor in the Power & Flow group at the department of Mechanical Engineering of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He is a specialist in theoretical and numerical modelling of combustion with application to engines, gas-turbines, boilers and furnaces. He heads a group that aims to develop new models for the design of devices employing new combustion concepts and future sustainable fuels. Jeroen van Oijen received his MSc in Applied Physics from TU/e in 1996 and his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the same institute in 2002. He was visiting professor at Stanford University, CA, in 2010, and at the University of California Berkeley, CA, in 2014. He is Fellow of The Combustion Institute for significant contributions to the development of numerical models and tools for laminar and turbulent flames, based on tabulated chemistry.

Justin Hardi has worked at DLR Lampoldshausen since 2007. In 2012 Dr. Hardi obtained his PhD on the topic of high-frequency combustion instabilities in cryogenic rocket engines. Justin Hardi led the research on high-frequency combustion instabilities for more than 6 years before becoming head of the Rocket Propulsion Technology Department in 2020.

Wolfgang Armbruster has been at DLR Lampoldshausen since 2015. In 2022 he obtained his PhD on the topic of high-frequency combustion instabilities in cryogenic rocket engines. Since 2021 Dr Armbruster leads the research topics of pressure gain combustion and combustion instabilities in cryogenic rocket engines within the Combustion Dynamics Group.

Michael Börner has worked at DLR Lampoldshausen since 2012 and obtained his PhD on the research topic of laser ignition for cryogenic rocket engines in 2022. Since 2020 Dr Börner is Team Leader of the Combustion Dynamics Group and test bench leader of the M3.1 cryogenic rocket engine technology facility in the Rocket Propulsion Technology Department. He has extensive experience in test bench operation including for ignition of liquid propellant rocket engines and rotating detonation combustors.

Dr. Thomas Gaillard is a research engineer at ONERA and part-time teacher at IUT de Ville d’Avray on Heat Transfers. He obtained a Ph.D. Degree (2013) in combustion from Université Paris-Saclay, France. During his Ph.D, he studied the operation of a rotating detonation engine (RDE) from a numerical point of view with a focus on designing and optimising an efficient injector.

Today, he continues working on RDE applied to space and aeronautical propulsions, with an interest in injector modelling, mixing efficiency characterization and two-phase flow modelling. His recent studies also include pressure oscillations characterization in a combustion chamber and modelling of solid rocket engines internal flow.

Dr. Dmitry Davidenko is a research engineer at ONERA. He obtained his Ph.D. Degree in Fluid Mechanics and Energetics in 2005 from Université d’Orléans, France. He has been working since 2007 on different subjects relative to the RDE thematic in particular on theoretical evaluation of the engine performance for the rocket and airbreathing cycles, detonation propagation simulation, injector and nozzle optimization.

Today, he is working on RDE in application to space propulsion and more specifically on injector modelling, characterization of the mixing and combustion efficiency, chemical kinetics of hydrocarbon fuels. His main research activities are in the field of combustion modelling including heterogeneous combustion of solid propellants and metal particles.

Julien Sotton is a full professor at ISAE-ENSMA Engineering School and at the FTC department of the PPRIME laboratory. His research focuses on experimental investigations of turbulent combustion, with particular emphasis on ignition processes (forced ignition, auto-ignition, HCCI, SICI), combustion-wall interactions, and turbulent combustion dynamics. He is a leading developer of advanced measurement techniques. He has extensive experience in both academic and industrial research. He has participated in numerous academic research programs, including the ITN Marie Curie Inspire dedicated to Pressure Gain Combustion, as well as R&D programs funded by industry partners such as SAFRAN, Total Energies, SAFT, and Renault. Since 2004, he has supervised and co-supervised 14 PhD dissertations. He has been the Head of the International Master Programs at ISAE-ENSMA since 2014.

Dr Florent VIROT is assistant professor at ISAE-ENSMA. His PhD was devoted to the study of the spinning detonation propagation in several gaseous mixtures. The research activities focus mainly on experimental aspects on high-speed flows such as those behind strong shock or in gaseous and two-phase detonations. The developments of experimental devices enable fundamental and applied studies of detonation propagation limit regimes, detonation propagation in two-phase mixtures, auto-ignition of hydrogen in air following a pressure vessel rupture, capture of particle by foams, flame acceleration and transition to detonation in small smooth channels, interaction between a strong shock and a water droplet.

Thierry Poinsot is research director at CNRS (IMF Toulouse), senior researcher at CERFACS, senior research fellow at Stanford University and member of the French Academy of Sciences. His work focuses on combustion, energy, propulsion, numerical methods, High Performance Computing. He has authored more than 250 papers in refereed journals and 300 communications. He is the author of the textbook "Theoretical and numerical combustion" (english and chinese) with Dr Veynante and one of the editors in chief of «Combustion and Flame». He is the PI of 3 ERC grants on combustion: INTECOCIS (intecocis.inp-toulouse.fr: 2013-2018), SCIROCCO (cerfacs.fr/scirocco: 2019-2024) and SAFE-H2 (2025-2030).

Dr. Omar Dounia received his PhD thesis in mechanical engineering at CERFACS/INPT (Toulouse, France) in 2018. He then joined IMFT as a post-doctoral researcher to study porous-media combustion. He was later hired as a fire/explosion safety engineer for AIRBUS’s novel hydrogen fueled aircraft. In 2022, he joined CERFACS as a permanent researcher focusing on the high-fidelity numerical modeling and theoretical analysis of compressible reactive flows. His research activities are centered around safety related combustion phenomena (chemical and thermal inhibition of deflagration waves, flame acceleration and Deflagration to detonation transition), pressure gain propulsion technologies (Constant Volume Combustion and Rotating Detonation Chambers) and plasma assisted combustion.

He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2020 from the PPRIME Institute, France – Department of Fluid, Thermal, and Combustion. Starting in May 2021, he joined the Laboratory (M2P2) – Department of Thermodynamic Numerics, Waves, Interfaces, and Combustion (TONIC) as a post-doc to work on numerical modeling using Lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM) for turbulent combustion (application to hydrogen safety). He joined Safran in October 2022 as a research engineer in combustion, where he is responsible for new combustion technology programs. His research experience covers detonation, the combustion of sustainable aviation fuels, and Lattice Boltzmann methods for combustion and compressible reactive flows.

Dr. Guillaume J. J. Fournier received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich. He has spent the last 10 years working in turbomachinery with Safran Helicopter Engines, ArianeGroup, TU Munich and Safran Tech, covering a broad range of fields of application, e.g. fluid design of turbopumps for rocket engines, thermoacoustics of aero and land-based gas turbines, among others. He is an expert in combustion dynamics and thermoacoustics and is currently a Research Engineer at Safran Tech

The scientific production of Prof. Misul consists of several publications, covering the following research streams: SI engine technology for bi-fuel ICEs; diagnostic and predictive tools for injection, combustion process and emission formation in ICEs; CFD analysis of combustion and flow interaction in gas turbine plants; AI assisted design and optimization air foil cooling and geometry. She contributes to the coordination of the research activities within the PT-ERC research group. She holds the scientific responsibility of National and International research projects; she coordinates activities related to the use of AI for smart application in the automotive sector within the CARS@PoliTO group.

Simone Salvadori is Assistant Professor at the Department of Energy (DENERG) of Politecnico di Torino. His main research field is the numerical modelling of unsteady turbomachinery flows, with special interest in the analysis of combustor/turbine interaction. He is involved in projects funded by European Community and in cooperation with relevant industries. He is author of more than 85 peer-reviewed papers and acts as Editorial Board member for MDPI Energies. He is Teaching Assistant since 2007 in the turbomachinery field. He has also been considered as supervisor for more than 70 BSc, MSc and PhD theses.

Associate Professor in the Turbomachinery and Propulsion department of the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. He obtained his PhD in 2012 in Applied Sciences from the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) with an experimental work on the aerodynamics and heat transfer of multi-airfoil turbine vane frame for aircraft jet engines. Dr. Lavagnoli has 16 years of experience in experimental and numerical studies on gas turbine engine turbomachinery. His research area focuses on the aerodynamics and heat transfer of jet-engine high-speed turbines, turbomachinery optimization and development of instrumentation and data processing techniques. Dr. Lavagnoli is also lecturer in turbomachinery in the engineering master program of the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium.

Dr. Saracoglu is the Research Expert of Propulsion in the Turbomachinery and Propulsion as well as Aeronautics and Aerospace departments of the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. He obtained his PhD in 2012 in Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department from the Wright State University (Ohio) on the experimental and numerical analysis of supersonic turbine vane trailing edge shock modulation by active flow control. His current research focus includes design and modelling of novel propulsion systems including ram/scramjet and combined cycle engines, pressure gain systems and variable cycle engines as well as visualizations techniques for compressible flows. Dr. Saracoglu also teaches Introduction to Propulsion lecture for Research Master program of the VKI.

Mihai Mihaescu is Professor in Fluid Mechanics at KTH, holding a Ph.D. Degree (2005) in Fluid Mechanics from Lund University, Sweden. He carried out his postdoctoral studies (2005-2007) at the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Gas Dynamics and Propulsion Laboratory, at the University of Cincinnati, USA. In addition to establishing and leading a research group at KTH, he is affiliated with FLOW (https://www.flow.kth.se/) and with the national competence center AdTherM - Advanced Computing for Sustainable Thermal Management in Industry. Professor Mihaescu's research is focused on applied CFD including code development and optimization to address problems in research areas like propulsion and energy conversion with focus on e.g. turbomachinery, flow separation control, flow mixing control, noise suppression methods, fluid-structure interaction. Prof. Mihaescu is AIAA Associate Fellow and Vice-chair for the ASME Technical Committee on Microturbines, Turbochargers & Small Turbomachinery.

Ardeshir Hanifi is Docent in Fluid Mechanics at KTH, holding a Ph.D. Degree (1995) in Fluid Mechanics from KTH. He is coordinator of FLOW (https://www.flow.kth.se/) and member of the management group of Swedish Aerospace Center (https://www.sarc.center). Hanifi's research is focused on flow stability and transition prediction and control, and aeroacoustics using high-fidelity numerical simulations. He is also the coordinator of Special Interest Group of ERCOFTAC (European Research Community on Flow, Turbulence and Combustion) on Transition Mechanisms, Prediction and Control (SIG 33).

Paolo Gaetani is currently Full Professor of Turbomachinery at Politecnico di Milano, the university where he also took his Master degree in Mechanical Eng. and his PhD in Energetics. His main research activities are in the unsteady aerodynamic of turbomachinery, mainly in the experimental field, focusing on stator – rotor and combustor-turbine interaction. He’s been contributing to develop high promptness aerodynamic probes and miniaturised thermocouple. He’s also actively working on the design of turbomachinery both turbine and compressors with specific focus on non-conventional fluids like ORC and sCO2 and on non-conventional applications like RDE turbines.

Noraiz Mushtaq is a research fellow at Politecnico di Milano, where he pursued his academic career from bachelor's to PhD. His research focuses on advancing turbomachinery design and optimization through the development of physics-based reduced-order models, with a particular emphasis on the complexities of supersonic flows. With expertise in designing, modeling, and simulating supersonic ducts and supersonic turbines for rotating detonation engines, he also has over three years of teaching experience at Politecnico di Milano. During this time, he mentored six students through their master's theses.

Prof. Marc Bellenoue is a full professor at ISAE-ENSMA. His research is focused on experimental analysis of Mixture, Ignition and Combustion in premixed and non-premixed confined flows with application to Propulsion (Pressure Gain Combustion: Constant Volume Combustion and Detonation; Pulverisation, ignition and combustion of storable liquid propellants; Combustion of homogeneous and stratified fuel-air mixture; Mixture, ignition and combustion optimization of H2-air high speed subsonic flows)

In 2011 he has initiated in collaboration with CNES : the PERGOLA project dedicated to liquid storage advanced Propellant for rocket engine.

From 2014 to 2020, he was the Head of the CAPA Chair dedicated to the Alternative Combustion mode for Airbreathing Propulsion using Pressure gain combustion (financially supported by SAFRAN, MBDA and ANR). Objectives were to individually identify the basic physical phenomena at work in innovative CVC or RDE combustion chambers, and to understand their coupling under conditions representative to final application.

Strongly involved in the European INSPIRE project between 2020-2024 co-supervising 4 ESR.

Alessandro Sorce is Associate Professor in the ING/IND-09 field (Systems for the Energy and the Environment) from October 2022 at the University of Genoa. He worked on the topic of Energy Systems Diagnostics focusing on performance estimate and remote long term monitoring of Gas Turbine and Combined Cycle collaborating with both OEM and Plant Owners. In the last years he is focusing on the Power Plant Flexibility and Hybridization including innovative solutions.

Alberto Traverso is Full Professor of Energy Systems at University of Genoa, Italy. He started the academic career as Assistant Professor in 2005 at the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre in Genoa.

Alberto is currently member of the Energy Turbomachinery Network Board since 2024, member of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) for Gas Turbine Society of Japan (GTSJ) since 2013.

He has been serving the ASME Turbo Expò Technical Committees and Organizing Committee since more than two decades.

He published more than 200 scientific papers, most of them at International conferences and Journals, 22 invited lecturers, 18 patents (Italy, US and World), and received 14 awards. He has been working with several International companies in the field of innovative energy system performance, dynamics and controls. Alberto is founder of two startup companies, H2Boat, for hydrogen technologies in marine applications, and SIT Technologies, for advanced bladeless machines.

Dr. Marco Ruggiero has studied mechanical engineering at the University of Florence and obtained a PhD in Energetics from the same University. He’s been working for Baker Hughes for the past 25 years. He spent 15 years of his career managing turbomachinery prototype testing for the Company getting familiar with a number of different technologies and products, going from simple single component to complex 120MW gas turbine testing. For the past 10 years he has been managing the research network for one of the Company businesses (Industrial & Energy Technology) looking especially at partnering with Universities and Research Centers for low maturity technologies in the Energy space.

Dr. Carson Slabaugh is the Paula Feuer Associate Professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University. Since joining Purdue in 2015, he has developed an education and research program focused on propulsion. Dr. Slabaugh’s laboratory is housed within the Purdue Zucrow Laboratory complex, with high pressure, high flow-rate system capabilities to enable experimental replication of the flow and flame conditions (pressure, turbulence level, thermal power density) found in the most advanced propulsion and combustion systems. Ongoing research projects cover a wide range of topics: from the fundamental exploration of detonations and turbulent flames to the development of advanced combustion technologies for liquid rocket engines and rotating detonation engines. His group also maintains a continuous effort in the advancement of high-bandwidth (typically, laser-based) measurement techniques to non-intrusively probe the physics of these complex, reacting flows. Support for these research projects has been provided by AFOSR, AFRL, DARPA, DOE, NASA, ONR, and numerous industrial partners. Prof. Slabaugh has published extensively in the field and is involved with multiple national efforts to transition advanced concepts into aerospace propulsion technologies.

Eric Bach is a Senior Research Scientist in Purdue University’s Zucrow Labs. He completed his Ph.D. from TU Berlin in 2022 focusing on rotating detonation combustor performance quantification and interaction with turbomachinery. At Purdue, he is currently working on RDC gas turbine integration. With more then ten years of experience, his research interests include combustion dynamics, pressure gain combustion, and general high-speed flows. Eric is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ pressure gain combustion technical committee and the International Gas Turbine Institute’s cycle innovations technical committee.