Dr. Francesco Panerai

Francesco Panerai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a founding member of the Center for Hypersonics and Entry Systems Studies. Prior to joining Illinois, he was a research scientist with the Thermal Protection Systems and Material Branch at NASA Ames Research Center, where he developed novel experiments to study ablative heat shields for reentry. At CHESS he leads the operation of the Plasmatron X wind tunnel for hypersonic materials research. Dr. Panerai has published over journal articles and 100 conference papers in the area of reactive flows and advanced materials for extreme environments. He wrote three book chapters on hypersonic ground test facilities, heat transfer measurements in experimental aerodynamics, and thermal protection for space exploration. He is a recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator Program (2019), the NASA Software of the Year (2022) and he is an AIAA Associate Fellow (2023). He received a M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Perugia (Italy) and Research Master and PhD in Aeronautics and Aerospace from von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in (Belgium).