Dr. David K. Hall

Research Engineer

BACKGROUND

Dr. David Hall is a Research Engineer at the MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory. He received his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from Duke University and his Masters and PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. Prior to his current role at MIT, he was the Propulsion Group Lead at Aurora Flight Sciences, where he led a multi-disciplinary team in advanced propulsion research and rapid development of propulsion systems for experimental prototype aircraft. In January 2021, he will be joining the Aerospace Engineering faculty at The Pennsylvania State University as an assistant professor.

RESEARCH

David’s work is focused on propulsion technology for advanced aircraft, with a particular interest in propulsion-airframe integration, electrification, and alternative energy. As a graduate student at the GTL, he was a member of the team that developed the D8 aircraft concept, where his thesis work addressed development of high-efficiency, distortion tolerant turbomachinery for boundary layer ingesting (BLI) propulsion. He was the technical lead on the NASA LEARN3 project, investigating the feasibility of electrified propulsion for ultra-efficient commercial aircraft. Currently, he is supporting the development of distributed electric boundary layer ingesting propulsion for the CHEETA aircraft concept as part of the NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) Program.

EXPERTISE

• Propulsion-airframe integration, BLI propulsion, and turbomachinery aerodynamics

• Electrified aircraft propulsion

• Application of optimization to vehicle and propulsion system design