Liselle Joseph joined the department in December 2023 as an assistant professor. She holds a joint appointment with the aerospace and ocean engineering department and the Virginia Tech national Security Institute. Joseph has significant experience in hypersonic phenomenology, turbulence and hypersonic electromagnetic signature modeling. She also has a strong background in wind tunnel experiments, instrumentation development and system design, and compressor rig testing.

She comes to the department after spending several years in industry, most recently as a senior scientist for Spectral Sciences, Inc. Joseph is a three-time Hokie, earning her bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Virginia Tech. 

She is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics.

What drew you to Virginia Tech? Share with us what excites you about the department and our students?

I came to Virginia Tech as an undergrad student and stayed for graduate school. The Virginia Tech culture of inclusivity, collaboration, innovation, and service is what has kept me coming back to Blacksburg. I spent 6 years in industry but missed the culture and innovation of VT, which is why I came back as faculty.

What does your research entail? What do you hope will come of it?

My research is in Hypersonic aerodynamics. I do both computational and experimental research into the fundamental phenomenon occurring in flows moving at hypersonic speeds, paying particular attention to turbulence effects and non-linear coupling effects of disparate phenomenon. I do research in both in the fundamental and applied space.

What originally got you interested in your work? Tell us about the ‘spark’ that pulled you to your area of research.

I started research in low-speed aerodynamics after taking the junior level aero-hydro and compressibility classes in the AOE department. Those classes, plus some challenging undergrad research assignments, got me hooked on figuring out the fundamental nature of fluid flows. Turbulence was the focus of my PhD and I have done research on this topic at all speed regimes during my time in industry. Hypersonics is now the focus of my research because there is a lot left to learn in this area, and there is an urgent national security need there as well.

Please share with us what you’d like engineering students to know about your lab and research group?

My research group tackles challenging, multi-physics research projects in Hypersonics using a variety of research tools like experiments and CFD. Students in my group are challenged to own their work and take initiative to innovate, under my guidance. The problems we solve are of direct importance and priority to the DoD and our national security.