Research Fellows
Ilias Vasilopoulos
Early Stage Researcher 11 at Rolls-Royce Deutschland
I was born in 1992 in Athens, Greece. I received my basic education and graduated from Lycée Léonin, a prominent French high-school in Athens, which set the basis for the development of my personality. Even back then, I was very interested in physics and the mathematics that govern its laws. I remember myself spending a lot of my free time trying to understand and explain the physics behind phenomena that would catch my attention.
In 2010, I entered the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), where I studied Mechanical Engineering for 3 years, followed by another 2 years of specialized courses on Aeronautical Engineering. Throughout my studies, I was mainly interested in the areas of Aircraft Engines, Aerodynamics, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Optimization Methods. I believe that studying at the NTUA has provided me with a strong theoretical background and adequate overview of the above fields. My diploma thesis, assigned by the Parallel CFD & Optimization Unit in the Laboratory of Thermal Turbomachines, dealt with the accurate prediction of integral quantities in aerodynamics (such as lift or drag), using adjoint methods to enhance the CFD simulations.
In April 2015, I joined the IODA project as an ESR fellow working for Rolls-Royce Deutschland (RRD) at the Dahlewitz facilities (Berlin), and also enrolled as a PhD student of the NTUA. My research was focused on implementing different methods to CAD-free and CAD-based aerodynamic optimization of geometrically complex turbomachinery components. I have found RRD to be an excellent working environment, offering me the opportunity to develop skills in innovative applied research, useful to both academia and industry.
Three years later, I consider the IODA project was a unique chance for young researchers like myself to meet and collaborate with professionals and field experts from all over the world, to participate and be trained in workshops and conferences, thus gaining valuable expertise and working experience within the industry. As for myself, participating in this project provided me with specialized knowledge and helped me evolve both as a professional and an individual.
Currently, I am still working in RRD since my contract was extended for an additional 2 years (until April 2020), within which I also expect to complete my PhD in the NTUA. Finally, a long-term personal career objective is to continue to conduct research in an industrial environment, which is the meeting point of theory and practice, and where I can apply the skills and knowledge obtained thus far.