Seongkyu Lee is an associate professor of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received a Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering, as well as a minor degree in the acoustics graduate program, from Pennsylvania State University in 2009. After a one-year postdoctoral position at Penn State, he worked at the General Electric (GE) Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York, for five years as a lead mechanical engineer and an advanced design tool program manager. He joined UC Davis in 2015 as an assistant professor.
Lee is an internationally recognized expert in rotorcraft computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and aeroacoustics, trailing-edge noise prediction and mitigation, turbulent boundary-layer flows, wind turbine aerodynamics and acoustics, and theoretical and computational aeroacoustics. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers in these areas as first author or co-author. Lee’s research team developed a new rotorcraft/wind turbine broadband noise prediction computer code named UCD-QuietFly, which is now used in academia and industry. His research has been funded and supported by NSF, NASA, the U.S. Army, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Hyundai Motor Co., Supernal, Hellman Foundation, Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), UC Davis and more. He has provided consulting services to several rotorcraft, electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL), and aerospace companies.
He has received numerous awards and honors, including the UC Davis Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award (2021), the Vertical Flight Society (VFS) Best Paper Award (2021), the Hellman Fellowship (2018), the Vertical Flight Foundation Scholarship (2009), and the Graduate Study Abroad Scholarship (2004). He is an associate fellow of AIAA. He has served as a member of the AIAA Aeroacoustics Committee since 2017 and the VFS Acoustics Committee since 2018.
Research interests: aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), rotorcraft, urban air mobility, noise prediction and reduction.