Rafael Palacios

Rafael Palacios is a Professor of Computational Aeroelasticity at the Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London (since 2007), and Deputy Head of the Department. He leads the Load Control and Aeroelastics (LoCA) Lab, focusing on computational methods for flexible aircraft and offshore wind turbines. He directs the Brahmal Vasudevan Institute for Sustainable Aviation, a multidisciplinary research center for net-zero aviation technologies. His academic lineage traces back to 18th-century German physicians, with a B.Sc. from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan (2001–2004).

Research interests include nonlinear aeroelasticity, multibody dynamics, and sustainable aviation. He has developed frameworks like SHARPy for aeroelastic simulations and contributed to open-source tools such as SU2. Awards include the AIAA Wright Graduate Award, Fulbright Fellowship, and Imperial’s Best Supervisor (2013). He serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Aircraft and previously for Journal of Fluids and Structures.

His work spans academic-industry collaborations with Airbus, MSC Software, and Facebook Inc. Notable publications include Dynamics of Flexible Aircraft (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and over 100 peer-reviewed articles on aeroelastic control, fluid-structure interaction, and wind energy systems.