David McDaniel

David McDaniel is a Research Professor (Not-In-Residence) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), affiliated with the Department of Aerospace Engineering within the College of Engineering. He holds a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University, and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Dr. McDaniel’s career spans military service and academic research. He began as a US Air Force flight tester analyzing stability and control of aircraft like the B-1A and B-2A bombers. Later, he taught aerodynamics and thermodynamics at the US Air Force Academy while pioneering computational aerodynamics research in the Aeronautics Lab. Currently, he leads development of the Kestrel fixed-wing simulation tool under the DoD’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP CREATE™-AV). He is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and maintains an active DoD security clearance.

His research focuses on high-fidelity CFD simulations for multidisciplinary aerospace problems, including hypersonic flows, aircraft stability/control modeling, and unstructured grid methods. His work supports defense acquisition efficiency through advanced simulation tools like Kestrel, which integrates aerodynamics, propulsion, and structural dynamics for fixed-wing aircraft analysis.

Publications highlight advancements in surrogate modeling, machine learning for aerodynamic predictions, and high-performance computing optimizations. His contributions address challenges in CFD accuracy, scalability, and real-world applications for fighter aircraft and hypersonic systems.