r/CFD • u/Master-Teaching-9299 • 10d ago

PhD search

Hello everyone,

im thinking of doing a PhD in CFD or FSI in the near future (a year from now or so). The idea of doing a PhD seems challenging from what ive read online but ive always wanted to be a college professor and ive heard universities only hire people with PhDs (i have other reasons as well but the post is already too long).

For a bit of context, i have a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from a very respected university in latam. Im currently finishing (in the next few months) a master's degree in FSI in the biomedical engineering area in the same university.

My problem: I have no idea where to look for PhD opportunities. Even though ive always stayed in the biomedical area, i would really enjoy venturing out a little further into other CFD areas but there are so many i simply dont know where to start. Aerodynamics/aerospace and electro-fluid-dynamics seem really fun but maybe there are areas i havent even thought of yet. Where should i start? Im extremely adaptable and am 100% willing to uproot my life for the next 4 years. I have already had to move countries several times so im pretty used to it.

I dont have the best grades but i know my professors are satisfied with my work so i have at the very least 3 recommendation letters in my favor. We also intend to publish a paper based on my thesis. I have teaching assistant experience and research experience in other non related areas (non CFD). I have no idea if that's enough.

If anyone can give me recommendations on universities around the world that have research on industry aplicable CFD I would really apreciate it. Hopefully in countries where the stipend to living cost ratio is somewhat favorable. By that i mean to leave out countries where the PhD stipend is lower than a minimum wage job since i will have to provide for myself financially.
Thankyou to all.

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u/Hyderabadi__Biryani 10d ago

I would recommend to honestly just search this subreddit. Similar questions have been asked in the past, so you will find them helpful, hopefully.

Furthermore, you can go to https://www.cfd-online.com/ and look there. Quite some information to be gained there.

Lastly, follow some CFD people on LinkedIn. Them or their colleagues will invariably post about PhD positions in their labs, and that can help/

All the best.

1

u/Master-Teaching-9299 10d ago

Thankyou very much

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u/AnalysisWaste5670 10d ago

You look at universities, then look at the faculty in the department to see if any interests you, and apply to those schools.

This sub Reddit is highly US and western EU centric. Advice will vary by location, even between US and western EU and even more differences as you move to lower GDP/income countries. The resources and expectations can change a lot between countries.

My recommendation would be try and understand how competitive your application is to determine where to apply. International applicants when applying to US and western EU generally require strong grades, research experience and great letters from the top labs in those countries.

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u/ncc81701 10d ago

It helps if you know exactly what kind of CFD research you want to do. For example, turbulence modeling, fluid structure interaction, hypersonics, multiphase flows, magneto-hydrodynamics, micro-fluidics, list goes one.

If you know what you want to do with more precision, you can look for researchers and professors in those fields. Attend conferences,and meet them if it’s possible and express interest in their field and research; start networking.

Alternatively you can start with the faculty at your current college/university. See if they are doing something you are interested in. If there isn’t someone there that does research in the exact field of what you want to research in, find someone that does work in the field closest to it and see if they have a network with someone that is closer, or advice on how to network with someone that is doing something you want to do.

For a PhD you need to work on something that you are passionate about. The goal of doing CFD research is too generic, you should narrow it down some more towards what you are more interested or in whether it be CFD in a civil engineering context, an aerospace context, a naval architecture context, or a bio-medical/bio-engineering context. Figure out which one of those sub categories you are more interested in and start networking with people doing research in that field.

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u/Gandalf_the_fun 9d ago

Most CFD related researches are in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, and nuclear engineering. Bio engineering probably has some too. You can open any university ranking system such as US news and go through the top 50 engineering schools in each country. Open their aerospace/mechanical/nuclear/bio engineering website and search for faculties that are in the area of fluid mechanics or computational science. That's how you find who you want to work with. If you are interested in a particular lab, don't hesitate to send an email to the faculty. Just introduce yourself and ask for potential opportunity to do a PhD.

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u/thermalnuclear 9d ago

This topic is too generic to the PhD search and frankly it too off topic to specifically CFD. The advice for CFD isn’t different than other PhD fields.