Academic staff

Professor Mahdi Azerpeyvand - Academic Lead

Mahdi Azarpeyvand is a Professor of Aeroacoustics and Aerodynamics at the University of Bristol. He joined the University in 2013 to establish the aeroacoustics research team, which has since grown into an internationally leading team of more than 30 researchers in aeroacoustics and environmental fluid mechanics. Professor Azarpeyvand previously held a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship (2011–2016) and worked within the Rolls-Royce UTC at the University of Southampton (2003–2011) and the Acoustics Group at the University of Cambridge (2011–2013).
He currently serves as the academic lead for the University of Bristol’s wind tunnel facilities and as the University’s representative to the UK National Wind Tunnel Facilities. He has played a leading role in the design and build of three national wind tunnels: the National Aeroacoustics Wind Tunnel (AAWT), the Pressure Neutral Wind Tunnel (PNWT), and the National Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel (BLWT).
His research spans experimental and theoretical aeroacoustics, including the development of passive and active techniques for reducing aerodynamic noise, and air pollution. He is also a Co-Investigator for the CDT in Sustainable Sound Futures (£8M, 2025–2034). Professor Azarpeyvand’s work is supported by the  EPSRC, Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society, Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, Clean Sky, and numerous industrial partners including ARA, Embraer, GE Dowty, AWE, Vestas, Siemens, ACCURIS, Safran, and others. He has secured more than £25M in research funding and an additional £5M for equipment and the development of Bristol’s multi-purpose wind tunnel facilities. He has contributed to more than 30 major research projects with a combined portfolio exceeding £100M.
He has published more than 300 journal articles and conference papers. His current research spans a broad range of topics, including airfoil noise, jet noise and installation effects, propeller and rotor noise, UAV/UAM aeroacoustics, turbulence–interaction noise, porous and microsurface treatments, active flow control, noise propagation, wall-bounded turbulence, air pollution, and pollutant dispersion. 

Dr Mohammad Jadidi

Dr Mohammad Jadidi is a Lecturer in Aeroacoustics and Aerodynamics at the University of Bristol. His research integrates high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD), experimental measurement, and both physics-informed and data-driven machine learning to advance the understanding, prediction, and control of complex fluid flows and aerodynamic noise.
Before joining Bristol, he was a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Manchester, where he led pore-scale large-eddy simulation (LES) studies, developed reduced-order models (ROMs), and applied physics-informed learning to turbulent flows in porous and environmental systems. He also has five years of industry experience as Head of a CFD department, where he led teams and established best-practice modelling frameworks for energy and thermal-fluid applications.
Dr Jadidi holds a PhD in Fluid Mechanics, with a focus on turbulence modelling of heat and mass transfer. His current research interests include aeroacoustics, indoor and outdoor environmental fluid mechanics, porous materials for flow and noise control, and AI-augmented scale-resolving simulations (including LES, DNS, SAS, and hybrid RANS/LES). He is particularly interested in applying data-driven and physics-informed machine learning for the modelling, inference, and control of complex fluid systems.

Dr Esmaeel Masoudi

Dr Esmaeel Masoudi is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Aeroacoustics and Aerodynamics at the University of Bristol. His research lies at the intersection of unsteady aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, and fluid mechanics, with a focus on understanding and controlling complex flow phenomena relevant to sustainable and emerging technologies. His work aims to advance noise reduction and performance enhancement in applications such as wind energy, urban air mobility, and energy harvesting systems.
Dr Masoudi’s research integrates both experimental and numerical approaches to study turbulence, vortical structures, and flow-induced noise. His experimental investigations involve advanced wind tunnel testing, including particle image velocimetry (PIV), unsteady pressure and velocity measurements, and microphone array techniques for aeroacoustic characterization. Complementing these, he employs high-fidelity computational methods such as large-eddy simulations (LES) to gain deeper insight into the underlying flow physics and noise-generation mechanisms.
Before joining the University of Bristol, Dr Masoudi developed extensive experience working on interdisciplinary projects that bridge fundamental fluid dynamics and applied engineering. He actively collaborates with UK and EU research institutions and industry partners to address real-world aerodynamic and aeroacoustic challenges, supporting the design of quieter, cleaner, and more efficient technologies.

Dr Claudia Nicolai

Dr Claudia Nicolai is a Lecturer in Environmental Fluid Mechanics within the School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering. She has developed international experience in fluid mechanics, leading multidisciplinary projects and IP generation in commercial and academic environments. Her research focuses on turbulence-driven transport and dispersion of air pollutants within the atmospheric boundary layer. Through the development of high-accuracy datasets and novel modelling approaches, her work aims to enhance predictive capabilities for sustainable and health-conscious environmental management. Claudia’s methodology is primarily experimental and includes 1) Design of parametric experimental campaign to replicate key environmental phenomena in controlled environment, i.e. wind tunnel or alternative research facility, across multiple spatial scales; 2) Acquisition of high accuracy data of concentration, temperature, velocity and pressure fields mostly using advanced laser-based optical techniques, including Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA), Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF), and infrared thermography; 3) Identification of main insights and data driven modelling.

Dr Djamel Rezgui

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Dr Djamel Rezgui is a Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering with over 16 years of research experience in rotorcraft dynamics, aeroelasticity, aerodynamics and aeroacoustics. His research interests extend to studying the aeroacoustics of novel multi-rotor aircraft configurations and nonlinear dynamics of oscillating aero systems. He worked closely with Leonardo Helicopters within the AgustaWestland UTC (2008-2012) on active rotor systems, leading to the first application of Continuation Methods for certification of production helicopters. Rezgui is a founding member of the UK Vertical Lift Network and he is the UoB PI on the EPSRC funded project (MENtOR) developing new multibody modelling framework for novel rotorcraft t configurations. Rezgui also has a wide experience of collaborating on research programmes with world-class academic and industrial partners, funded by the ATI, EU and the EPSRC. He has been involved in collaborative research funding from Leonardo Helicopters, Airbus, ARA, BAE Systems, Innovate UK (WINDY, DAWS), CleanSky2 (SilentProp, TailSurf) and EPSRC. 

Dr Daniele Zagaglia