Rate My Professor Carolyn Jacobs

Dr. Carolyn Jacobs serves as a Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland, where she is also an affiliate of the Centre for Advanced Materials Processing and Manufacturing and the Centre for Hypersonics. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Aerospace Engineering through a cotutelle arrangement between The University of Queensland (2006-2011) and CentraleSupélec in France (2009-2011), complemented by a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical and Space Engineering from UQ completed in 2005. Prior to her current role, which began in April 2020, Jacobs held a Lectureship at the University of the Sunshine Coast's School of Science, Education and Engineering from January 2017 to April 2020, and served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Energetics at CentraleSupélec from January 2014 to January 2017.

Jacobs' research specializations encompass hypersonic flows, non-equilibrium reacting shock layers, air plasma radiation, emission spectroscopy, radiative heat transfer measurements in low-density atmospheres, shock-wave boundary layer interactions, and plasma-ablator interactions. She has been principal investigator on two Australian Research Council Discovery Projects: "Non-equilibrium reacting shock layers" (2020-2023) and "3D Hypersonic Shock-Turbulent-Boundary-Layer Interactions" (2023-2027). Her scholarly output includes 44 works documented in UQ eSpace, spanning journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters. Notable publications feature "Prediction of nonequilibrium air plasma radiation behind a shock wave" (Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, 2016), "Measurements of Air Plasma/Ablator Interactions in an Inductively Coupled Plasma Torch" (Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, 2015), "3D streamers simulation in a pin to plane configuration using massively parallel computing" (Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 2018), "Air collisional-radiative modeling with heavy-particle impact excitation processes" (Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, 2016), and recent works such as "An intensified ultra-high-speed optical emission spectroscopy system for hypersonic impulse test facilities" (Experiments in Fluids, 2025) and "Measurements and modeling of air plasma radiation in the VUV" (Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, 2023). At UQ, she coordinates and lectures in courses including Thermodynamics & Heat Transfer (MECH3400) and advanced mechanical engineering topics (MECH7101), and is available for higher degree research supervision.