Job description:
Multiple graduate research assistant openings are available in the mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical 
engineering (MABE) department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for the fall semester of 2024. The 
positions are for Ph.D. in Mechanical / Aerospace Engineering. We have close collaboration with the University 
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the Pennsylvania State University, and MIT. Topics include:

1)	High-fidelity MDO (especially CFD with laminar-turbulent transition model, time-spectral/harmonic 
balance, and aeroelasticity).
2)	Control co-design and digital twin.

More details can be found on my website: sicheng.utk.edu
Prior experience in computational work and programming skills are valued. Students with mechanical, 
aerospace, control, engineering physics, and applied math engineering backgrounds are welcome. These 
positions come with full funding, including stipend, health care, and tuition waiver. Please send your resume, 
transcript, and contact info for one previous research advisor to sicheng@utk.edu. 

PI:
Sicheng He (website: https://sichenghe.github.io) is an assistant professor at the mechanical, aerospace, and 
biomedical engineering (MABE) department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He was a postdoc 
researcher at the LAE led by Prof. Steven Barrett (interim department head) and Dr. Raymond Speth, affiliated 
with the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT.  He obtained a Ph.D. from the MDO lab at the 
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, supervised by Prof. Joaquim R. R. A. Martins. FAA, DOE ARPA-e, and 
AFOSR sponsored previous research projects. His research interest is applying multidisciplinary design 
optimization (MDO) to develop a better design / developing MDO methods to enable its application to 
problems never solved before.  His previous research includes off-shore wind turbine design optimization, 
aircraft flutter suppression, aerodynamic shape optimization with laminar-turbulent transition mechanism, 
aerodynamic shape optimization using machine learning, and convex programming-based novel structural 
optimization algorithm development.  Recently, he has been working on methods to include more 
sophisticated dynamical system models (e.g., bifurcation and LCO) and control as a discipline in MDO (also 
known as control co-design). He is a co-organizer of the online fluid mechanics forums IBIM seminar: 
http://ibim-conference.com/. For more details about Dr. He, see https://sichenghe.github.io. To learn more 
about MDO, see Prof. Martins’ recent textbook https://mdobook.github.io/.

UTK:
The Tickle College of Engineering is undergoing a period of substantial growth in both physical infrastructure 
and research expenditures as it seeks to become a Top 25-ranked public institution. The college has seven 
departments with 186 faculty members, 3,393 undergraduates, and 1,155 graduate students. The department 
currently has 59 faculty members and enrolls some 1,331 undergraduate and 182 graduate students. 
Research expenditures in the department are currently at $15M per year. More information regarding the 
department may be found at mabe.utk.edu.