Profile of a Professor: Prof. Stefan Hickel

Name
Prof. Stefan Hickel

Position
Professor of Computational Aerodynamics and head of the Aerodynamics Section at the TU Delft Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. In addition, Director of the Graduate School of Aerospace Engineering. 

Private life
‘I was born in 1978 in a small town near Berlin, Germany, and I live now with my partner Susi and my 7-month-old son Carl in the centre of Delft. Susi hopes to return soon to her work as an orthopaedic/trauma surgeon. My favourite leisure time activities include volleyball and other sports, reading books on history and enjoying my collection of acoustic and electric guitars. I have a fascination for good design and architecture and I love to travel, preferably combined with visits to old ‘stones’ and buildings. I also travel often for my work. As a result, I have friends all over the world: a nice extra benefit from my academic career!’

Favourite pastime
‘I am currently very much involved in the renovation of the old canalside house that we purchased. This is why I have so little time now for cycling - something I was planning to do here in Delft. Many of our travel plans have also been put on the back burner, but we have already taken our yellow VW bus on many fantastic road trips through the States, France and Italy during the last years. I’m also on the VVV Delta volleyball team.’

Career high point
‘Actually, the fact that I have a job that I really enjoy is fantastic. I’m getting paid for my hobby, and this is a great achievement in itself. Other highlights result from working with students, including all the times when an idea becomes a successful reality. I can’t really point to one special event; it’s been more of a continuous process with various high points along the way.’

Career in short
‘After graduating in Mechanical Engineering at the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus, Germany, I received my PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics from the Technical University of Munich in 2008. I have formerly worked at Porsche, Rolls-Royce (Aviation & Aerospace) and at TU Dresden. In 2007, I became lecturer and head of the Large Eddy Simulation Group at TU Munich. Taking on this position meant building and forming a new research group with MSc and PhD students. Especially guiding them to work together was quite a challenge that turned into a wonderful experience! Since 2015, I have been Professor of Computational Aerodynamics at TU Delft. My research interests include detailed physical models and numerical methods for gas dynamics, hydrodynamics, turbulence and combustion, for example. Outside of the TU Delft, I serve as Chairman of the ERCOFTAC Scientific Programme Committee and am a board member for the J.M. Burgerscentrum, our national research school for fluid dynamics.’

Your greatest challenge at the moment
‘At the personal level, this is being a parent - a wonderful experience but also one accompanied by new responsibilities - and the renovation of our house which is taking much longer than expected. Professionally, I want to encourage collaboration with colleagues both inside and outside of the group and to continue the development of synergies on many fronts. I am also attempting to improve the infrastructure for computer simulations which is currently very much lagging behind the excellent facilities for experimental research. This includes working intensively with others on setting up a High-Performance Computing Centre in Delft.’

Most enjoyable aspect of work
‘My work itself: conducting research and working with students. I enjoy sharing knowledge I’ve learned from reading but even more what I have learned from experience. Working at a university offers wonderful opportunities to inspire young people. After all, they are the engineers that will shape our future! What makes this so special for me is that some of my students will help to make my own dreams come true. If I share an idea with my students, it will get passed around to many more people over time. This means a great chance that something truly revolutionary will come of it - and that’s a nice thought.’

Why Delft?
‘At this university, it’s not only the research and the funding you raise that’s important but also that you count as a person. The human chemistry here is good: people are involved and interested in each other. What’s more, the research environment here is excellent. Various groups here enjoy international recognition, and many professors here are doing fantastic work that’s related to mine. Another thing I think is fantastic here is that collaboration is seen as very important. Although my research depends a lot on computers, I was strongly attracted by our world-class wind tunnels and the quality of the experimental research. I collaborate here with some of the world’s best experimentalists!’

Best character trait
‘I never give up. And I’m always coming up with new ideas. I’m also never afraid of failure. On the contrary, I approach possible failure of an idea as a positive thing: every time an idea doesn’t lead to success, you can learn from it and generate new ideas. I don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t work out. My approach to students is the same: I always try to encourage them not to give up but to persevere. Many young people think, “I have a theory, I’ll prove it, and that’s all there is to it.” But it’s never that simple. If I see students getting stuck, I keep working with them as long as it takes to get them going again.’

Worst character trait
‘I’m sometimes chaotic and too perfectionist. What’s more, when I delve into a challenging problem, I can go for hours - and even all night through - without eating or noticing anything around me. I’m trying to cure myself somewhat of this now, however, for the sake of my family.’

Key issues on the political agenda
‘Education throughout the world but also research because both are required to build our future. Huge amounts of money are being invested in managing the present while we tend to forget what we’ll need to make our future as good as it is today or better. In countries like the Netherlands and Germany, research and education are absolutely essential because we have few natural resources. People are our greatest capital, so we should be developing them as much as we can! We should also be devoting more attention to helping the less fortunate around the world so they can attain the same quality of life as we enjoy, preferably in a more sustainable way. Sustainability is a major issue.’

Source of inspiration
‘My colleagues and friends as well as our students who come up with such interesting questions and ideas during our supervisory sessions and classes - as well as their work here in the DREAM teams and after they graduate: the challenging issues they’re not afraid to take on, and their solutions to them. The non-academic world is another important source of inspiration and motivation for me. I conduct research in fluid mechanics; the world outside the university offers the greatest conceivable opportunities for experimentation in this area. Dutch weather is full of turbulence and two-phase flow. There’s even some fascinating turbulence close to the building that accommodates our Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Inspiration at our fingertips! I’m also inspired by books on history, especially biographies of the great researchers of all time. By reading them, I hope to learn something about how they approached their work.’

Personal philosophy
‘I think it's good to set really big goals, such as being the first to solve a truly challenging problem and actually doing simulations that others deemed impossible. But it's also fun to solve the smaller problems along the way.’