Our Team
The international faculty, researchers, and students driving innovations at ClusterDEM.
Coordinators
Senior Members
Doctor Amine Benmoussa
Researcher (Topic Leader)
EHD modelling and FSI in multiphysics (In partnership with PSA Group).
📧 Email Contact
Prof. Dr. João Pereira
Professor Auxiliar Convidado | FCT Researcher
Printable sensors and plasma actuators for flow control in aeronautics (Smart Materials Team).
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Doctor Michele Trancossi
Visiting Scholar
Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. Focus: Fluid dynamics and the second law of thermodynamics.
Doctor Mostafa Gerdroodbary
Visiting Researcher
Specializing in Compressible Flow, Reduced Order Modelling, Machine Learning, and DSMC pipelines.
PhD / Master Students
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Data-Driven Models and Physics-Informed Operator Encoder Transformer for Field Reconstruction from Sparse Sensors”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Non-equilibrium plasma enhanced flame stabilization for high efficiency low emission combustion”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Experimental testing of DBD plasma actuators and execution boundaries”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Self-sensing and self-healing ceramic composites using functionally graded materials and additive manufacturing technologies for thermal barrier coatings in aerospace applications”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Experimental Investigation into the Efficiency and Scalability of Tesla Turbines for Compressed Air Energy Applications”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Advanced Ice Protection System for Wind Turbines and Aircraft based on Novel Electro-Active Polymer Plasma Actuators “
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Advanced Plasma-Assisted Electrostatic Spray Systems for Enhanced and Sustainable Surface Finishing in the Automotive Industry”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Tesla turbine design and simulation architectures for compressed air energy storage systems”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Experiments with Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma actuators”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Numerical simulation of Ammonia combustion enhanced with DBD plasma actuators”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Optimization and uniformization of the flow at the outlets of a plenum using adjoint solver mesh morphers (In collaboration with Adamastor)”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Experimental Analysis of plasma actuators on flow dynamics in a premixed burner with various configurations of Swirler and bluff body”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Numerical Simulation of Aerodynamic Interactions Between Twin Vertical Axis Wind Turbines”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Numerical simulation of plasma enhanced premixed flames in swirl bluff body burner”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Experimental study of flow control with Coanda nozzles”
Research/Thesis Focus:
“Plasma flow control for surface cooling enhancement”
Project Manager / Secretary
IT consultant / Admin
Alumni
Miss Lylia Dai
Former Visiting Researcher
University of Algeria
Project: “Design and 3D simulation of 2D wedge nozzle”
Dr. Odelma Teixeira
Former Researcher (PhD Student)
Project: “MHD modelling of plasma thrusters for CubeSats”
Mr. Shivesh Narayan Sharma
Former Visiting Researcher
Henri Coanda Labs LLC (USA)
Focus: Fluid dynamics, Aeronautic Engineering
Mr. Edson Conceição
Former M.Sc. Student
Project: “Numerical modelling of a Tesla disk pump”
Doctor Reza Pendar
Former Researcher
Now at University of Victoria
Project: “Numerical simulation of Electrohydrodynamic sprays”
Dr. Sílvio Cândido
Researcher (PhD Student)
Project: “Numerical modelling of Taylor cone Electrohydrodynamics”
Prof. Dr. Carlos Xisto
Former Member
Now at Chalmers University
Project: “Computational Modelling of MHD Flow”
Doctor Mehdi Rami
Researcher (Former PhD Student)
Now at Aalto University
Project: “Computational modelling of unsteady 3D effects in cyclorotors”
Mr. Filipe Dias
Former Researcher
Project: “Computational modelling of MHD Flows at arbitrary magnetic Reynolds number”
Doctor Karuppusamy Periyadurai
Researcher (Former Post-Doc)
Project: “Numerical simulation of MHD-Non-Newtonian flows”
Mr. Filipe Sabugueiro
Researcher (Former M.Sc. Student)
Project: “Experimental testing of Taylor cone EHD”
Mr. Gustavo Ribeiro
Researcher (Former MSc Student)
Now at Omnidea
Project: “Numerical modelling of micro-Electrothrusters for CubeSats”
Doctor Galina Ilieva
Researcher (Former Post-Doc)
Now at TU-Varna
Project: “Numerical Modelling of Propulsion Systems for Airships”
Doctor Kuldeep Dagar
Researcher (Former Post-Doc)
Now at University of Nottingham
Project: “Cycloidal rotors working in turbine and propulsive mode”
Doctor Aditya Mushyam
Researcher (Former Post-Doc)
Now at ESA, ESTEC
Project: “Computational Modelling of plasma actuators”
Mr. Guilherme Santos
Researcher (Former M.Sc. Student)
Now at Hitachi Consulting
Project: “Experimental testing of plasma actuators using quantitative Schlieren”
Mr. Fábio Silva
Researcher (Former M.Sc. Student)
Now at TE Connectivity
Project: “Turbulent Flow in an Industrial Centrifugal Pump in Direct and Reverse Mode”
Mr. Marco Santos
Researcher (Former M.Sc. Student)
Now at TE Connectivity
Project: “Experimental Modeling of an MHD pump for MEMS Applications”
Mr. Duncan Gawel
Visiting Researcher
Queens University (Canada) | Ceres Power
Project: “Numerical modelling of MHD flows with applications to MPD thrusters”
Mr. Fikri Hangul
Visiting Researcher
Çukurova University | Temsa
Project: “CFD analysis of aerodynamic performance for the UBIan prototype Eco-Marathon vehicle”
Prof. Dr. Jakson Monteiro
Researcher (Former PhD Student)
Now at University of Cape Verde
Project: “Parametric and numerical design of cycloidal rotor thrusters”
Mr. Serafim Pinto
Researcher (Former M.Sc. Student)
Now at Aptiv
Project: “Roughness for passive control of transition in 3D boundary layers”
Doctor Shyam Sumanta Das
Post-Doc Researcher
Now at University of Brasília (UnB)
Project: “DBD Plasma Actuator Applications Design”
Doctor Rui Oliveira
Researcher (Former PhD Student)
Now at LusoSpace
Project: “Numerical Computation of Transitional Flow in Propulsion System Elements”
Doctor João Morgado
Researcher (Former PhD Student)
Now at ETI | Creator of JBlade
Project: “Propeller blade design and simulation architectures”
Mr. Nelson Mendes
Researcher (Former M.Sc. Student)
Project: “Numerical and Experimental modelling of low-Re number ground vehicles”