Kazuki Tojo

Research Assistant

BACKGROUND

Kazuki was born in Malaysia and raised in Thailand as a Japanese expatriate. Flying to and from Japan since early childhood, one of his earliest memories is his love for airplanes, which soon evolved into a scientific fascination for broader aerospace. Kazuki interned as a propulsion engineer for Japanese rocket startup Interstellar Technologies in 2021, where he was involved in two successful suborbital launches. He attained a B.S.E. from Princeton University, with a thesis on the thermal behaviour of a lithium self-field magnetoplasmadynamic thruster at the Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory. He also spent a year at the University of Oxford, where he completed an M.Eng. thesis on MEMS gas sensing for cooling and combustion at the Oxford Thermofluids Institute. Kazuki enjoys travelling and exploring the world, especially through wilderness trekking and scuba diving.

RESEARCH

For his S.M. thesis, Kazuki is working on compressor rotating stall. Specifically, the project aims to unify theories of spike-type and modal-type stall inceptions.

EXPERTISE

Kazuki's expertise lies in the fluid mechanics and heat transfer of aerospace propulsion.

kazukitj@mit.edu