Iosif-Oliver Szavuj

Background 

Oliver Szavuj is currently a Master’s student in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at Stanford University, having graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics & Astronautics from Stanford University in 2025. Prior to his graduate studies, he served as Chief Engineer and Aerodynamics Lead for Stanford’s AIAA Design-Build-Fly team. His professional experience includes Joby Aviation, Gulfsream Aerospace, Daher, among others. During his time at Stanford, Oliver has worked on aerodynamic analysis, vortex-lattice methods, joined-wing aircraft configurations with twist control and adjustable geometry parameters, and 3D finite-element modelling of strut-braced wing systems.

Research Focus 

Oliver is focused on developing and applying computational techniques for advanced aircraft configurations. His current efforts include:

• Modeling unsteady rotor and propeller flows, using vortex particle methods (VPM), capturing wake roll-up, blade–vortex interaction, and time-accurate loading for rotors. These VPM results are subsequently coupled to the Ffowcs Williams–Hawkings (FW-H) formulation to generate narrowband, broadband, BPF harmonic, and tonal noise estimates.
• Implementing a vortex lattice method (VLM) code that supports the analysis for the optimization of joined-winged aircraft for over 15 wing parameters.
• Building a 3D finite-element model (FEM) of a joined-wing aircraft under combined forward and vertical aerodynamic loading, enabling root coordinate and tail-root position optimization.

Outlook 

Oliver aims to advance multidisciplinary aircraft design by unifying high-fidelity aerodynamics, structural modeling, and data-driven methods to support the conceptual development of next-generation AAM vehicles. A central direction of his future work is the creation of integrated frameworks that combine lifting and non-lifting surfaces into a single, consistent parameterization of the full airframe - wings, tails, rotors, pylons, booms, fuselage, and lifting-propulsion elements. By enabling whole-aircraft geometric and aerodynamic coupling within a shared design space, he seeks to make early-stage configuration optimization more scalable and physically informed. His long-term goal is to bridge high-fidelity unsteady simulations with rapid multi-fidelity design tools, thereby improving the modeling and optimization of unconventional AAM configurations.