• Title: Research Engineer, Hypersonic Aerothermodynamics – Research Engineer, Hall Effect Propulsion
• Place of birth: Levanto (SP), Italy
• Date of birth: October 7^th 1972
• Phone: +39 050 985072
• Fax: +39 050 974863
• E-mail: a.passaro@cpr.it

Education

• July 1999: Laurea Degree in Aerospace Engineering, Università degli Studi di Pisa (Pisa, Italy). Score: 110/110 cum Laude. The thesis work was on experimental characterization of compressible turbulence in hypersonic flows.
• Jan 2001 – Present: Aerospace Engineering PhD program, Universita' degli Studi di Pisa.
• January 2001 – March 2001: Special Course in Applied Mathematics (Applied Statistics and Probabilistical Modelling), Graduate School of Mathematics (Pisa, Italy).
• January 2003 : Lecture Series on Gas Turbine Condition Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis, Von Karman Institure for Fluid Dynamics (Bruxelles, Belgium).

Professional
experience

• October 1999 – present: Research Engineer in the framework of the:

-      Aerothermodynamics Programme working on experimental, numerical and theoretical projects under ESA, ASI and NASA contracts about compressible turbulence study and hypersonic wind-tunnel design and set-up.

-      Plasma Propulsion Programme. Computational activity focussing on facility and HET plume simulations.

Main work interests

Fluid Dynamics:

• Hypersonic aerothermodynamics.
• Turbulent flows.
• Gas turbine combustion chamber condition monitoring.

Space Technologies:

• Hall effect thrusters (Stationary Plasma Thruster, SPT)
• Vacuum technology and space simulation.
• Computational plasma physics, with applications to electric propulsion.

Others:

• Genetic algorithms optimization.
• Electronics design and optimization for data acquisition and post-processing.

Languages

• Italian, mother tongue
• English, fluent
• German
• French

Affiliations

• AIAA - American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.