I am a graduate student studying CFD and am about to graduate, so I'm agressively looking for job opportunities. I know that NASA doesn't hire engineers directly anymore, instead contracting the projects out to companies that provide the CFD expertise. My question is this: does anyone out there have any advice about how to locate these companies? My search so far has been rather inefficient. Are there any good resources out there other than NASA's website and the CFD-jobs listing?

Thanks! -Jeremy Shipman, The George Washington University

You are probably located in Washington D.C., so, why not give the President a call ? I think he is back from China. I don't know what NASA is doing now. But, back in 80's, I remember NASA was very active in CFD. In those days, the super-computer was the name of the game. Star wars, National Aerospace Plane were the future. But now we are moving into the next century, you need to be able to write CFD in JAVA on Internet, so that our President can show people in other countries we are well ahead of them. Like the car you are driving, software can also be written in other countries. CFD in JAVA on Internet is the way to go. It maybe slow right now, but it's faster than finding a CFD job with NASA or NASA contractors . ( Well, they maybe still working very hard trying to fix the leaking space station . If that's the case, you need to be very patient)

Are you kidding? I'm serious. I'm thinking whether I have a better opportunity to get a job if I can write CFD in Java. I'm sure less people can do that than usual CFD guys or Java experts. Do you think this idea is stupid?

I am not saying that I have written a CFD code in JAVA. Java is an object-oriented, easy-to-program, OS independent (or trying to be ) language. It is based on C and C++. It has been used for HTML, database, graphics, multimedia, etc. CFD in JAVA will give you direct access to Internet. JAVA is a trend, just like C and C++, you can't stop it. By the way there is no such thing as " stupid ideas ". Ask Bill Gates whether he is still supporting Fortran ? ( What Fortran ? ).....

I don't know if John's comment about Java was a joke, but Java is hot also in CFD. Just today I got a letter from Numeritec promting their latest code and they emphasize the fact that it's "100% pure Java design". With that I guess they mean that the GUI is based on Java, not the solver. For GUIs and educational things Java is definitely hot also in CFD, although I think there will still be sometime before we see commercial Java solvers. They already exist in education though:

The Java Virtual Wind Tunnel

The Ideal Flow Machine

Thank you very much for your information on JAVA CFD. Excellent idea , excellent work !!! The computer graphics and animation is the best way to enter CFD door. And every student should take the computer graphics course before taking the CFD. Back in early 70's, when I was working on 3D Navier-Stokes solutions at Virginia Tech., I had to develop graphics for pen plotter myself to replace boxes of print-out. I think computer graphics should be part of CFD. CFD=computer graphics + geometry + mesh + turbulence modeling + Navier-Stokes equations + numerical algorithms + programming language ( Basic,C,C++,Fortran, JAVA ) + common sense in physics ( or engineering ). By the way, cfd-online is a fun place to visit .