Current Members

Dr. Subhajit Roy is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the St. Peter’s University, Chennai. He then obtained his master’s and PhD from the department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He followed on with a postdoctoral position at the Jiangsu University, China and an exchange researcher position at the Ohio State University Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. His research interests involve fluid dynamics, turbulent flows, high-speed aerothermodynamics, turbulent reacting flows, high fidelity numerical simulations, and turbulent combustion.

Dr. Rakesh Ranjan is a Research Scientist with the University of Texas San Antonio, and a Scientist Advisor with General Dynamics. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and Master’s from Pennsylvania State University. He obtained his PhD from the Texas A&M University Department of Mechanical Engineering. He followed on with a PostDoctoral Fellowship position with the University of Texas, San Antonio Department of Mechanical Engineering, He later joined the Nuclear Engineering and Non Proliferation Division as a Research Associate. Following he joined the University of Oklahoma, School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering as a Senior Research Associate. His research interests involve aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, High Order Methods, Large Deformation Analysis, Beams and Plate theories, incompressible/compressible flow computations.

Sakshi More is an MS student in Computer Science (Data Science) at The University of Texas, San Antonio. With a strong foundation in Information Technology, Sakshi excels in software development and database connectivity, showcasing expertise in Java, Python, MySQL, and C++. Notably, she co-authored a research paper on “Sarcasm Detection Using Twitter Analysis,” displaying proficiency in machine learning and sentiment analysis. Sakshi’s practical experience spans designing immersive VR games and leading web development projects at TB Global. She’s earned recognition from Microsoft for her contributions to Python programming and holds certifications in Ethical Hacking. With a career stint at Tata Consultancy Services, Sakshi acquired valuable skills in cloud technologies and business applications. Beyond academics, Sakshi is a proactive volunteer, contributing to community initiatives and NGOs like Ayudh. Passionate about fostering diversity and inclusivity, she’s involved in various cultural and social endeavors. Eager to delve deeper into scientific visualization and data analysis, Sakshi looks forward to contributing to Professor Araya’s research and advancing the boundaries of technology and innovation.

Joseph attended The University of Tennessee, Knoxville where in 2023 he earned his B.S in Aerospace Engineering with an honors concentration. At the University of Tennessee, he worked as an undergraduate researcher under Dr. Uday Vaidya focused on Carbon-Carbon composites for hypersonic applications. He joined the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2024 for his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering under the guidance of Dr. Christopher Combs and Dr. Guillermo Araya working on analyzing high-speed crossflow jets.

Matthew earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University in May 2020, with a minor in Aerospace Engineering. After graduation, he went on to work on Dynetics’ HLS program, at Hermeus, and at Southwest Research Institute. Matthew is a research assistant in the lab focusing on CFD database post-processing, turbulence statistics, and effects from recycled domains. He is working on his Master’s in Mechanical Engineering, focusing on turbulent boundary layer analysis via DNS/LES.

Brandon has been an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Computational Turbulence and Visualization Lab (CTV Lab) since March 2023. He is a full-time student at UTSA, pursuing a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. His future plans involve obtaining a Masters in Aerospace Engineering, specializing in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Hypersonic Boundary Layer Research. During the summer of 2023, he interned at StandardAero working on RB211 engines and conducted an independent study under Dr. Araya. Brandon is scheduled to graduate in the Fall of 2024.

Christian received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez in 2019. Christian is a PhD Student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. From 2015 through 2017, he performed numerical analysis of experimental data obtained from highly-loaded composite materials. From 2017 through 2018, he performed applied research on the detection of micro-bubbles using artificial intelligence techniques. In 2016, he performed an internship for GE Aviation as part of the EID program. He also conducted applied research as part of the US Government during 2017 as part of a 6-month COOP experience and during the 2019 summer period. He joined the HPCVL in spring of 2019 where his current research includes large-scale, direct numerical simulations (DNS) of supersonic/hypersonic, spatially-developing turbulent boundary layers (SDTBL) at high Reynolds numbers and the development of massively parallel DNS post-processing algorithms (Aquila-CFD) tailored for heterogenous, distributed-memory computing environments. As an undergraduate, he received the PR-LSAMP scholarship for his work studying compressibility effects of a supersonic SDTBL via DNS. He is an NSF Bridge to the Doctorate Fellow, and his PhD research is aimed at advanced turbulence modeling in hypersonic flows subject to very strong curvatures via DNS-data-driven methods and physics-informed Machine Learning. He received his Doctoral Candidacy in April 2020. Christian was awarded the prestigious 2021 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF), the project title is “Towards advanced turbulence modelling in reacting hypersonic flows and complex geometries via Direct Numerical Simulation and Machine Learning.” Currently, he is a research volunteer at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at UTSA.

David received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez in May 2020 and December 2022, respectively. In spring of 2020, David joined High Performance Computing & Visualization Lab Team as an Undergraduate Research Assistant, where he assumed the responsibility of large-scale, direct numerical simulations (DNS) data post-processing and visual representation using Virtual Reality. Since he joined the team, he has worked on continuously optimizing the Virtual Wind Tunnel by improving data manipulation within the visualization process for subjects like: spatially-developing turbulent boundary layers (SDTBL) subject to very strong favorable pressure gradient (FPG), and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) for SDTBLs subject to strong concave-convex surfaces to study flow separation. From 2016 through 2019, David was member of Aero Design RUM-Air Team where besides reaching Team Captain position in his last year, he also achieved collective top-places awards in every yearly international competition. David also had Engineering Internship/Co-op experiences in aerospace industry with Collins Aerospace and Honeywell Aerospace. Currently, he is a research engineer at Raytheon (Tucson, AZ) and a research volunteer at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at UTSA.

Sean joined the CTV Lab in Fall 2022 as a student volunteer to aid with development and maintenance of the CTV lab website.

When not working with Dr. Araya on website matters, Sean conducts research within the Multifunctional Electronics Materials and Devices Researcher Laboratory. Sean is pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.

Former Members

Akshay attained his bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from Rajasthan Technical University (India) in 2014. He held the position of Software Engineer at various firms for approximately over five years. Presently, he is doing a master’s in Computer Science at the University of Texas at San Antonio. During his time at the university, he is focusing on data analytics and visualization in AR and VR in his research endeavors.

Odai is a senior undergraduate student at the University of Texas at San Antonio pursuing a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a computer science minor along with the Aerospace Engineering certificate. He is working to further research in understanding compressibility effects on the budget of the momentum & energy equations in turbulent boundary layers using special numerical techniques such as Reynolds-averaged Navier Stokes RANS) and Favre-averaged Navier Stokes (FANS) equations. Odai is scheduled to graduate in May 2024.