Cornell B.S. ME · M.Eng. Aero

I build the measurement and the model, then make them agree.

Mechanical and aerospace engineer working across test hardware, propulsion and fluid systems, and physics-based simulation — from a hot-wire traverse that gave a wind tunnel its first trustworthy velocity map to a flapping-wing flight model derived from first principles.

Test & InstrumentationPropulsion & Fluid SystemsSimulation & Modeling
See the work
Albert Addo

Currently

Aircraft performance analysis

Physics-based simulation in Python & MATLAB

Test rigs, DAQ, and measurement chains

Chicago, Illinois | Ithaca, New York | Melbourne, Florida — open to relocation

About

I build the thing, then I check whether it agrees with the model.

I'm a mechanical and aerospace engineer who works at the seam between hardware and analysis. That has meant machining a traverse on a manual mill and writing the CFD that justified its shape; deriving flapping-wing equations of motion in SymPy and then training an agent against them; running an engine on a test stand and reducing the pressure traces afterward.

What ties it together is a preference for closing the loop. A measurement without a model is a number; a model without a measurement is a hypothesis. The projects here are mostly cases where I got to hold both ends — and a few where the two disagreed, which is usually where the real work starts.

Focus Areas

  • Test engineering, instrumentation, and data acquisition
  • Propulsion, fluid systems, and thermal analysis
  • Physics-based simulation and reduced-order modeling
  • Structural analysis and mechanical design
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Education

Dec 2025

M.Eng. Aerospace Engineering

Cornell University, College of Engineering

Advisor: Prof. Jane Wang

May 2025

B.S. Mechanical Engineering

Cornell University, College of Engineering

Sibley School Outstanding Senior Award

Availability

Early-career engineering roles

Chicago, Illinois | Ithaca, New York | Melbourne, Florida — open to relocation

U.S. citizen — no sponsorship required.

Experience

Where the hardware talked back.

An aircraft OEM, a graduate research group, four semesters of teaching, and two studios that maintain and run real test equipment.

01

Sales Engineer — Aircraft Performance & Software

Embraer Executive Jets

Jan 2026 — Present

Melbourne, FL

  • Verify aircraft performance against certified data, translating it into the takeoff, range, and payload answers customers actually make decisions on.
  • Built two Python applications in four months that automate fleet analysis, replacing manual lookup workflows the commercial team had been running by hand.
  • Work across engineering and commercial teams to turn technical aircraft capability into the evidence behind a proposal.
Aircraft PerformancePythonCopilot StudioData ToolsTechnical Sales
02

Research Engineer, M.Eng.

Cornell University — Prof. Jane Wang Lab

May 2025 — Dec 2025

Ithaca, NY

  • Derived the nonlinear equations of motion for a flapping-wing flyer from first principles in Python and MATLAB, combining Newton's second law with blade-element aerodynamics, using SymPy for the symbolic derivation and SciPy RK45 for integration.
  • Identified a hovering-capable set of wing kinematics analytically, holding lateral drift to 3 mm and vertical drift to 1.12 mm over a 10-second simulation.
  • Root-caused a reinforcement-learning reward flaw and improved training reward by 75% across roughly 196 iterations.
PythonMATLABSymPySciPyDynamicsUnsteady AeroPPO / RL
03

Teaching Assistant

Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University

Aug 2022 — Dec 2025

Ithaca, NY

  • Taught across four core mechanical engineering courses over seven semesters — running office hours, laboratory sections, and grading for undergraduate and graduate students.
  • Designed and built the teaching-assistant demonstrator robot for Mechatronics, which tied with ASML's.

Courses taught

Thermodynamics

Fluid Mechanics

Dynamics

Mechatronics

TeachingLab InstructionMechatronicsArduino / C Firmware
04

Mechanical Engineering Intern — Design & CAD

Glenn Curtiss Engine Studio, Cornell University

Summer 2024

Ithaca, NY

  • Designed a complete 3D CAD model and assembly from scratch of a 1916 Curtiss V8 aircraft engine with no reference documentation — modeling each cast and machined component, defining interfaces and tolerances of fit, and validating the assembly in motion.
  • Delivered a model now adopted for museum exhibits and coursework, driving an augmented-reality experience students use to dissect the engine virtually.
  • Designed and built a custom rotatable engine mount from 80/20 hardware, sizing it to its loads and cutting dismantling time.
Fusion 360Reverse EngineeringMetrologyTolerance of FitCAD Animation80/20 Structures
05

Aerospace Engineering Intern — Design & Test

Wind Tunnel Studio, Cornell University

Summer 2023

Ithaca, NY

  • Designed a motorized two-axis positioning mechanism from concept — selecting the drive through a four-option trade study, sizing it with free-body torque calculations, then building and commissioning it with motors, encoders, firmware, and a LabVIEW interface, inside a one-month deadline.
  • Characterized the test section across a 154-point survey grid, establishing a mean freestream of 3.11 m/s uniform to 0.44% standard deviation — the tunnel's first repeatable, position-resolved velocity map.
  • Designed a turbine blade by sweeping 24 candidate airfoils in a MATLAB performance model to select a NACA 4415 profile, then fabricated and wind-tunnel tested it, correlating FEA predictions to measurement within 15%.
  • Designed replacement load-cell mounting hardware after root-causing a faulty sensor, restoring better than 95% measurement accuracy.
LabVIEWNI DAQHot-Wire AnemometryLoad CellsManual MillArduinoANSYS FluentMATLAB
Skills

Tools I have actually shipped something with.

Everything listed here appears in a project on this site — nothing is on the list because I read about it.

Propulsion & Fluid Systems

Designing to a chamber-pressure or delta-v requirement.

Feed-System DesignTanks & PressurantTurbopumpsInjectorsPropellant Trade StudiesCycle ModelingCompressible FlowHeat Transfer

Test & Instrumentation

Building the measurement chain, not just reading it.

Test Plan DevelopmentLabVIEWNI DAQHot-Wire AnemometryLoad CellsPitot-StaticArduino / C FirmwareTorque Brake Dyno

Simulation & Analysis

Commercial solvers plus solvers I wrote myself.

ANSYS MechanicalANSYS FluentShell FEAParametric OptimizationXFLR5BEM / Actuator DiskEuler–BernoulliFinite Difference

Mechanical Design & CAD

From concept sketch to a drawing a machinist can hold.

Fusion 360SolidWorksGD&TTolerance Stack-UpDetail DrawingsDesign for ManufactureMaterial Selection

Programming

Where the modeling actually happens.

PythonMATLABNumPy / SciPySymPyStreamlitCC++JavaGitLaTeX

Manufacturing

Matching each part to a process that can hold its tolerance.

Manual MillLatheLaser CuttingFDM & Resin Printing80/20 StructuresMachinist Coordination

Selected Coursework

Spacecraft Propulsion (cryogenic propellants)

Aircraft Propulsion

Electric Propulsion & Plasma

Compressible Flow

Intermediate Fluid Mechanics with CFD

Advanced Heat Transfer

Finite Element Analysis

Mechanics of Materials

Intermediate Dynamics

Engineering Vibrations

Flight Dynamics

Computational Engineering Physics

Projects

Built, instrumented, and tested — then written up.

Leading with the hardware I designed, instrumented, and put on a test stand. Each opens into the full write-up: the trade study, the governing equations, the figures, and what the data actually supported.

Hot-Wire Anemometry Traverse for the “Big Blue” Wind Tunnel
Built & Commissioned

Wind Tunnel Studio, Cornell University

Hot-Wire Traverse

Replaced a wind tunnel's fixed pitot-static probe with a two-axis lead-screw traverse I designed, machined, instrumented, and validated in under a month — giving the tunnel its first repeatable, position-resolved velocity map.

3.11 m/s
Mean velocity across 154 survey points
0.44%
Standard deviation as a fraction of mean
±1.6%
Peak-to-peak spread of the mapped field
< 1 month
Concept to commissioned hardware
Fusion 360Manual MillLabVIEWArduinoNI DAQANSYS Fluent
Read the case study
Three-Piston Radial Water Pump
Built & Tested

MAE 2250 Mechanical Synthesis, Cornell University

Radial Piston Pump

A positive-displacement pump machined entirely by hand from raw stock. It cleared its flow requirement roughly sixfold — and then failed at its hose joints under exactly the pressure its own drivetrain could produce.

5.9 L/min
Delivered at ~60 rpm — 5.9× the requirement
40%
Volumetric efficiency: unsealed pistons, no check valves
~170 psi
Stall bound from crank torque vs. ~30 psi barb retention
53
Discrete machining operations, all on manual equipment
SolidWorksManual MillLatheLaser CuttingGD&TMotion Study
Read the case study
Forklift Engine Test Campaign
Completed

Toyota Forklift Studio, Cornell University

Engine Test Campaign

Instrumented engine testing on a production inline-six: in-cylinder pressure–volume work, thermal behaviour under load, and the data reduction that turns raw traces into performance numbers.

15Z
Toyota inline-six engine under test
P–V
Indicated work extracted from in-cylinder pressure traces
Engine TestingData AcquisitionThermocouplesPressure TransducersData Reduction
Read the case study
Long-Range Glider Design & Competition
Top 5 Finish

MAE 3050 Introduction to Aeronautics, Cornell University

Long-Range Glider

A balsa glider designed from published sailplane performance data, validated in XFLR5, flown in competition, and then dimensionally scaled to fly in a thinner, lower-gravity atmosphere.

Top 5
Of more than 30 competing teams
11.2
Wing aspect ratio, at 37.6 g all-up mass
4.73
Measured glide ratio against 5.81 theoretical
16.9 m
Best competition run distance
XFLR5Fusion 360Laser CuttingSimilitude ScalingStability Analysis
Read the case study
Curtiss OXX-6 V8: Reverse Engineering to Augmented Reality
Deployed at the Curtiss Museum

Glenn Curtiss Engine Studio, Cornell University

Curtiss OXX-6 Reverse Engineering

A 1916 Curtiss OXX-6 — one of the first mass-produced American aircraft engines — taken apart, measured, and rebuilt as a complete animated CAD assembly that now drives a museum AR experience.

1916
Year of manufacture — among the first mass-produced US aircraft engines
V8
Configuration reconstructed part by part
0
Reference drawings available at the start
Fusion 360Reverse EngineeringMetrologyCAD AnimationAugmented Reality
Read the case study
Microwave Plasma Jet Engine Simulation
Completed

MAE 6540 Plasmas for Propulsion, Cornell University

Plasma Jet Simulation

A MATLAB model of plasma formation inside an experimental microwave jet engine — standing-wave electron heating, energy-dependent ionization of N₂ and O₂, and the pressure rise that follows.

0.25 µs
Simulated time to peak electron temperature
N₂ + O₂
Species with separate impact-ionization thresholds
3D
Finite-difference spatial field, marched in time
MATLABFinite DifferencePlasma PhysicsCollision Cross SectionsTime Marching
Read the case study
All 11 projects
Contact

Let's talk about hard problems.

Open to early-career engineering roles in aerospace and defense — test, simulation, propulsion, structures, and design.

Email

albertaddo1327@gmail.com

Location

Chicago, Illinois | Ithaca, New York | Melbourne, Florida — open to relocation

LinkedInResume

What I'm looking for

  • Test engineering and instrumentation
  • Simulation, modeling, and analysis
  • Propulsion and thermal-fluid systems
  • Structures and mechanical design
  • GNC and flight dynamics