Rate My Professor David Gildfind

Associate Professor David Gildfind serves as Director of Higher Degree Research and Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. A graduate in aerospace engineering from RMIT University in 2001, he gained industry experience working on aircraft structures at GKN Aerospace in Melbourne (2002-2003) on A340 and A380 programs, Australian Aerospace in Brisbane (2003-2005) on DHC4 Caribou, and Stork Fokker in the Netherlands (2005-2007) on F35-JSF and Gulfstream G6 projects. He pursued his PhD at UQ, completing in 2012 with a thesis titled "Development of high total pressure scramjet flow conditions using the X2 expansion tube," followed by postdoctoral research enhancing expansion tube wind tunnel capabilities to simulate realistic scramjet flight trajectories beyond Mach 10, including free-piston driver optimization, flow condition development, and test flow characterization. He holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education from UQ and was appointed as a lecturer in 2014, now teaching courses in aircraft structures, design, and hypersonics.

Gildfind's research centers on experimental hypersonics, encompassing expansion tube and shock tunnel facility development, scramjet propulsion, planetary entry aerothermodynamics, and innovative magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) aerobraking technologies. He initiated UQ's MHD aerobraking research program, securing an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellowship from 2017 to 2020 to experimentally evaluate MHD for human missions to Mars. He currently leads ARC Discovery Projects: "Magnetohydrodynamic Aerobraking for Spacecraft Entry to Earth's Atmosphere" (2023-2025) and "Effect of Magnetic Field Deflection on Magnetohydrodynamic Heat Shield" (2025-2027), aimed at reducing spacecraft heating for safer and more efficient entry systems. He has secured additional funding from sources including the United States Office of Naval Research and the Commonwealth Defence Science and Technology Group. Notable publications include "Expansion tubes in Australia" (2016), "Accelerated pump tube concept for hypersonic ground testing" (2024, Aerospace Science and Technology), "Large-scale free-piston-driven multi-mode shock expansion tunnel" (2024, Experiments in Fluids), "Magnetohydrodynamic experiments of total heat flux mitigation for superorbital earth reentry" (2022, AIAA Journal), and "Expansion tube test flow design for magnetohydrodynamic aerobraking" (2021, AIAA Journal). His contributions have advanced hypersonic ground testing capabilities with 788 citations across 80 publications.