Post-Doctoral Researcher - Civil & Construction Engineering - Hypersonic Flow Solvers and Computational Mechanics

Job Title: Post-Doctoral Researcher - Civil & Construction Engineering - Hypersonic Flow Solvers and Computational Mechanics

Posting End Date: August 6, 2026

Position Start Date: September 1, 2026

Required Degree: 

PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Computational Science, Computer Science, or a closely related field, completed prior to the start date.

The required degree must be completed by the start date.

Required Qualifications: 

• Strong background in computational mechanics, numerical methods, scientific computing, or solver development.
• Demonstrated experience developing scientific or engineering simulation software.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work independently while contributing effectively to a collaborative research team.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience developing or using computational fluid dynamics solvers, particularly for compressible, high-speed, or hypersonic flows.
• Experience with computational solid mechanics solvers.
• Experience with high-order mesh generation, computational geometry, adaptive meshing, moving meshes, or mesh optimization.
• Experience with fluid-structure interaction or other multiphysics coupling strategies.
• Experience with isogeometric analysis, high-order finite element methods, discontinuous Galerkin methods, finite volume methods, or related advanced discretizations.
• Experience with C++, Fortran, Python, Julia, MATLAB, or other scientific computing languages.
• Experience with MPI, OpenMP, CUDA, Kokkos, RAJA, PETSc, Trilinos, MFEM, deal.II, libMesh, SU2, OpenFOAM, FUN3D, or related computational science software.
• Experience with collaborative software development practices, including Git, GitHub/GitLab, testing frameworks, continuous integration, and technical documentation.

Position Summary:

A post-doctoral researcher position is available to support advanced research and software development in computational mechanics, with a primary emphasis on high-performance hypersonic flow solvers and related multiphysics simulation technologies. The researcher will contribute to the development, implementation, verification, validation, and application of advanced numerical methods for high-speed compressible flows and related multiphysics simulation capabilities. Depending on the candidate's background and project needs, research may involve spline-based finite element methods, coupled fluid-structure interaction, space-time solvers, solid mechanics, mesh generation, and related computational modeling capabilities.

The position is intended for a highly motivated researcher with strong technical depth in numerical methods, scientific computing, solver development, and computational mechanics. Experience with one or more of the following areas is especially desirable: computational fluid dynamics, computational solid mechanics, mesh generation, multiphysics coupling, parallel programming, and/or isogeometric analysis.

This role emphasizes rigorous computational research, high-quality scientific software development, and close collaboration with faculty, students, and external research partners. The successful candidate will help advance next-generation simulation capabilities for challenging hypersonic and multiphysics applications.

Duties/Expectations: 

The Post-Doctoral Researcher will contribute in the following areas:

Hypersonic Flow Solvers, Computational Mechanics, and Numerical Methods

• Develop, implement, test, and improve numerical methods for hypersonic and high-speed compressible flow simulation.
• Contribute to scalable solver capabilities for complex flow physics, which may include shocks, boundary layers, thermal effects, fluid-structure coupling, solid mechanics, mesh motion, and other challenging multiphysics phenomena.
• Develop and evaluate numerical discretizations, nonlinear and linear solvers, preconditioners, time-integration strategies, and stabilization approaches relevant to large-scale simulation.
• Support research involving advanced discretization technologies, potentially including finite element methods, high-order methods, space-time methods, and related approaches.
• Assist in integrating solver components across fluid, solid, mesh, and multiphysics modules.
• Support verification and validation activities, including benchmark problems, code-to-code comparisons, manufactured solutions, and comparison with available experimental or reference data.
• Develop robust workflows for simulation setup, execution, post-processing, and analysis of hypersonic flow problems.

High-Performance Scientific Software Development

• Design, implement, and maintain high-quality scientific computing software in modern programming environments.
• Develop scalable parallel algorithms and simulation workflows for distributed-memory, shared-memory, and GPU-accelerated high-performance computing.
• Use and contribute to computational tools involving linear algebra, sparse matrix methods, iterative solvers, preconditioning, mesh data structures, and parallel communication.
• Support code testing, documentation, reproducibility, version control, and software engineering best practices.

Applied Research, Publications, and Technical Communication

• Conduct original research related to hypersonic simulation, computational mechanics, numerical methods, and scientific computing.
• Co-author peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, technical reports, and research presentations.
• Present research results at project meetings, technical reviews, conferences, and sponsor-facing discussions.
• Contribute to proposal development, technical documentation, and research planning as appropriate.

Collaboration and Mentorship

• Work closely with faculty, graduate students, undergraduate researchers, and external collaborators on research and software development activities.
• Provide technical guidance to students contributing to solver development, computational mechanics, mesh generation, or multiphysics simulation tasks.
• Support internal knowledge transfer through documentation, tutorials, code reviews, and collaborative development practices.
• Help maintain a productive, rigorous, and collegial research environment.

Documents Required at the Time of Application: Please attach the following documents to your faculty application:

This position requires the successful candidate to relocate and/or reside in Utah for the duration of their employment.

MISSION ALIGNMENT STATEMENT INSTRUCTIONS

If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

BYU is committed to hiring faculty members who enthusiastically embrace and energetically advance its unique mission. To this end, please include a one-page mission alignment statement as part of your application that addresses how you might, as a BYU faculty member: (1) live a life of loyalty to Jesus Christ and His restored Church and align yourself with doctrine and teachings declared by living prophets, seers, and revelators; (2) demonstrate intentionality in building faith in Jesus Christ and testimony of His restored gospel among students and others in the BYU community; and (3) teach your subject matter with the Spirit of God and strive to keep it “bathed in the light and color of the restored gospel” (Spencer W. Kimball).

If you are not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

Applicants who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints include a one-page mission alignment statement that describes understanding of and commitment to the Mission of Brigham Young University and the AIMS of a BYU Education.

EMPLOYMENT REQUIREMENTS

All new employees who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be required to hold and be worthy to hold a current temple recommend.

All faculty are required to abide by the university’s Honor Code and Dress & Grooming Standards. Preference is given to qualified candidates who are members in good standing of the affiliated church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Successful candidates are expected to support and contribute to the academic and religious missions of the university within the context of the principles and doctrine of the affiliated church.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Brigham Young University is an equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veteran status.