Hello, and thank you for showing enough interest in my life that you actually clicked on a link entitled “About me”.
I am an Associate Professor, and Course Director for Aerospace Engineering, in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. As part of my duties here at Monash, I head a research team called the Shock Lab, as part of the Laboratory for Turbulence Research in Aerospace and Combustion (LTRAC), conducting research on compressible fluid flow.
I obtained my undergraduate degrees in Mechanical & Aerospace from Monash University in 2005, including one year of study at the University of Queensland. Upon completion of my undergraduate degree I immediately enrolled in a PhD at Monash University, under the supervision of Prof’s Damon Honnery & Julio Soria. I delayed the start of my PhD for six months however, to work with Dr. Nigel Smith at the Defence Science & Technology Organization, performing numerical modelling of scramjet engines.
My PhD was a mix of technique development and fundamental fluid physics, focusing on supersonic jet flows (jets of gas moving faster than the speed of sound). I was fortunate enough to be in a laboratory, and working with supervisors, with an absolute wealth of knowledge in the field of optical diagnostics. Even with access to all this expertise, the PhD was hard going; the kind of measurements I was trying to perform are notoriously difficult.
I was able to take a respite from beating my head against the measurement wall, when I was fortunate enough to receive a Fulbright Fellowship in the 2007-2008 round. I spent eighteen months working with Prof. Ron Hanson, at Stanford University’s High Temperature Gas Dynamics Laboratory. While at Stanford, I worked on developing techniques for measuring fluid temperature using Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence, and undertook a series of measurements in the shock tubes laboratory of Prof. Hanson. The Fulbright Fellowship was not only incredibly important from an academic & professional perspective, but also a personal one; in a salsa class at Stanford I met my wife, the wonderfully talented Dr. Laura Edgington-Mitchell.
Upon my return to Monash, I (eventually) completed my PhD, and took up a casual lecturing position at Monash. This has now led to the position I now hold, conducting teaching and research in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. Along with my colleague Dr. Petronio Nogueira, I run a research team of about fifteen people, including postdoctoral researchers, PhD and Masters students, as well as undergraduates. I teach Thermodynamics and Gas Dynamics to our second-year aerospace students. I was the Inaugural Chair of Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity in the Faculty of Engineering at Monash, and I am a member of the Women in Fluids Subcommittee of the Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society, and a member of Women in Aviation/Aerospace Australia. I am presently an ARC Future Fellow, studying resonance in rocket nozzles.
I have set up this page in the hope that it will be educational, and hopefully at least a little entertaining. If you have any questions about any of the material here, please feel free to contact me.