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Our People

Prof. Rafael Palacios - Director

Professor Rafael Palacios is the Director, Brahmal Institute for Sustainable Aviation, Deputy Head, Department of Aeronautics and a Professor of Computational Aeroelasticity. His research interests include load control and aeroelastics, wing optimisation and aircraft dynamics.

Rafael’s responsibilities at the Brahmal Institute include the operational management, vision and strategy, and stakeholder engagement.

Email: r.palacios@imperial.ac.uk

Prof. Laura Mainini - Associate Director

Professor Laura Mainini is the Chair in Aerospace Computational Design. Her research interests include multidisciplinary design optimisation, scientific machine learning, data-to-decision for design, manufacturing, condition monitoring and operations of aerospace systems/vehicles, computational methods for digital engineering, complex systems design and integration

Laura’s responsibilities at the Brahmal Institute include sealing Industry engagement and collaborations, deputising for the Director and supporting the Institute’s vision and strategy.

Email: l.mainini@imperial.ac.uk

Dr. Sebastian Eastham - Senior Lecturer

Dr. Sebastian Eastham is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Aviation. His research interests include aircraft and launch vehicle emissions estimation, computational modeling of the resulting atmospheric and environmental impacts, identifying new technical solutions to these challenges, and novel approaches to observing and simulating aircraft condensation trails (contrails) and their climate effects.

Email: s.eastham@imperial.ac.uk

Dr. Rhea Liem - Reader in Sustainable Aviation Technologies

Dr Rhea Liem is a Reader in Sustainable Aviation Technologies. She focuses her research efforts to bridge the gap between the fundamental development of computational science and its real-world implementations, particularly to support sustainable aviation goals.

To date, her work has found applications in aircraft design and air transportation – while taking their interdependence into account – with the main goal to improve overall fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.

Email: r.liem@imperial.ac.uk

Ruby Wlaschin - Institute Coordinator

Ruby Wlaschin is the Institute's Coordinator, providing support for general inquiries, communications, and social media. She also assists with event coordination, media relations, press inquiries, and information on PhD and job opportunities.

Email: brahmal-institute@imperial.ac.uk

Hui Ling Wong

Hui Ling's background is in aeronautical engineering. She is pursuing a PhD on how climate change-driven intensification of clear air turbulence will impact future aircraft design. Previously, she was a software engineer, porting the OpenJDK Java Virtual Machine to memory-safe hardware (CHERI), focusing on the Graal Just-In-Time compiler. As a 2025 Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, she aims to promote good software engineering practices among researchers.

Imperial Profile

Joseph Schaefer

Joseph is a PhD candidate specialising in computational methods for multi-fidelity active learning and multi-scale modelling, with applications in the design and optimisation of hydrogen fuel cell systems for future commercial aircraft. Outside of the academia he enjoys hockey, lacrosse, and running.

Website

Remi Obasa

Remi is a PhD student exploring the design and optimisation of hydrogen powered aircraft. He earned an MEng in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2024. His research interests include aircraft conceptual design, multidisciplinary design optimisation and physics-based modelling, with the goal of advancing sustainable aviation solutions.

Victor Ballester Ribo

Victor is a PhD student in Computational Fluid Dynamics supervised by Prof. Spencer Sherwin and Prof. Yongyun Hwang. His research focuses on how gaps in airplane wings influence the transition to turbulence. To investigate this, they make use of nektar++ software, which uses a spectral/hp element method approach.