Rodrigo Castellanos

Rodrigo Castellanos is an Assistant Professor in Aerospace Engineering at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M). His research focuses on the application of artificial intelligence in aerodynamics and aeronautical design, particularly in surrogate modeling, adaptive sampling, and shape optimization.

He holds a degree in Aerospace Engineering and a Master’s in Aeronautical Engineering from UC3M, where he also earned a Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics with Cum Laude honors, an International Doctor distinction, and an Extraordinary Doctoral Award. His doctoral research focused on active flow control techniques for heat transfer enhancement, integrating AI for open- and closed-loop control. During his Ph.D., he conducted a research stay at TU Delft’s Flow Control Group under Prof. Kotsonis, contributing to ERC-funded work on plasma actuators for thermal control. Before joining UC3M as faculty, Rodrigo Castellanos was a researcher at the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), where he worked in theoretical and computational aerodynamics before transitioning to missile aerodynamics.

His research now focuses on AI-driven aerodynamic surrogate modeling, reinforcement learning for optimization, and manifold learning for aerodynamic data prediction. As a Principal Investigator, he has secured competitive funding for research projects on machine learning for propeller aerodynamics and multifidelity modeling. He actively contributes to European and national research initiatives and maintains strong collaborations with leading institutions such as TU Delft, DLR, INTA, UPM, BSC, KTH, and PoliTo. He is also actively involved in knowledge transfer initiatives with industry partners, promoting the application of AI-driven methodologies in aerospace engineering. Beyond research, he is committed to teaching and academic mentorship, having supervised multiple undergraduate and master’s, thesis, and currently supervising 8 PhD candidates.