
Flavio Noca, PhD
Professor of Aerodynamics
I have spent more than two decades in the United States, as a student, researcher, and lecturer in the Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, Pasadena, USA) as well as a research engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, USA). Since mid-2000, I have been in Switzerland teaching and conducting research in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics at HEPIA (HES-SO University of Applied Sciences). I am also lecturing (Compressible Fluid Mechanics) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
Africa 1965 - 1983

USA 1984 - 2005

Switzerland 2006 - present
Pictorial Research History
It is in many ways the Wind Tunnel of the 2020s. Thomas Rosenbaum, Caltech President, 2017 End-of-the-Year Message
Laboratory Scientists and Engineers

Thierry Bujard
Thierry received his Master’s degree from the University of Southampton (UK) in Naval Architecture. For his MS thesis, he desgined and built a functional jellyfish-like robot. He completed his Bachelor thesis at Caltech, by designing, building, and flying a drone in a wind tunnel under MOCAP control.

Luca Bardazzi
Thierry received his Master’s degree from HES-SO. He is co-founder of WindShape, and his design skills have led him from underwater drones to fully functional digital wind facilities and space capsules.

Nicolas Bosson
Thierry received his Master’s degree from the University of Southampton (UK). He is co-founder of WindShape. He applies his rigorous measurement skills to any experimental platform.

Cyprien de Sepibus
Cyprien is working on his MS degreee at EPFL. He is a fixed-wing drone pilot and design prodigy.

Geshanth Visvaratnam
Gesh received his BS at HES-SO Genève, working at CHACHACHA. He developed a robotic procedure for measuring flows in front of a windshaper..

Theo Mercat
Theo received his BS and MS from HES-SO. His expertise is in mechanical design, for space and aeronautical platforms.

Luca di Matteo
Luca received his PhD from Brown University. He has expertise in drone development. He has published in Interface Focus and Science (Robotics) as a fist author, and received the “La Recherche” Prize for Best Technological Development in 2017.
THE People
2019

Enrico Ajanic
Doctoral Candidate
Enrico has designed, built, and tested an Avian-Inspired MAV with Synergistic Morphing Wing and Tail for Multi-Role Flight.

Jean-Baptiste Gilles
EPFL
Jean-Baptiste characterized the aerodynamic properties of the senseFly ebeeX.

Marie Dayer
Engineer
Marie worked on simulating the aerodynamics of senseFly drones using Lattice-Boltzmann methods.

Jean-Philippe Kuntzer
Engineer
Jean-Philippe developed a methodology to measure and computer boundary layer transition on a human-powered vehicle.

Mehdi Rezzouk
Engineer
Mehdhi implemented a Lattice-Boltzmann solver to bicycle wheel aerodynamics.

Thibault Bratschi
Engineer
Thibault studied ground effect on drones.

Nathan Pellaux
Engineer
Nathan investigated the effect of sweeping jets on blades of wind turbines for flow control in gusty environments.
2018

Prof. Mir Feroskhan
Professor at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
As a postdoctoral fellow, Mir ran aerodynamic tests in a WindShape wind facility on a novel feathered drones built by Enrico Ajanic.

Pierre Barlow
Engineer
Pierre designed and built a snow making system based on the design from the Institute for Snow and Avalanches in Davos for testing drones.

Adrien Fleury
Engineer
Adrien automatized the control of drones in a motion captured camera environment.
2017

Cédric Michel-Grosjean
Trackside Car Performance Engineer for McLaren F1 Racing
Cédric developed a test bench for the McLaren wind tunnel for his Master’s project.

Raimondo Pictet
Engineer
Raimondo did his Master’s thesis at Caltech designing and building a propeller instrumented with sweeping jets.

Matteo di Luca
Doctoral student, Brown University
Matteo built and tested a new feathered drone, which won the award for best technological achievement in 2018 by the magazine La Recherche.

Jan Duba
Engineer at Rolex
Jan did his Bachelor’s thesis at Caltech designing the control system for a propeller instrumented with sweeping jets.

Thierry Bujard
Engineer
Thierry designed a built a quadcopter drone in order to perform flow measurements in a wind tunnel.

Alexandre Kolly
Engineer
Alexandre designed a second version for a proppeler test-bench instrumented with air injection mechanisms..

Thibault Grillet
Engineer
Thibault developed a setup to investigated bicycle wheel aerodynamics in a water channel.

Alexandre Faimali
Engineer
Alexandre did research on the possibility of having a permanent flying drone.
2016

Chama Bennani
Engineer
Chama worked on the evaluation of viscous friction on an oscillatory disk from PIV data.

Nicolas Bosson
Research Engineer at WindShape
Nicolas designed and integrated sweeping jets on a NACA 0012 airfoil and performed the tests in the Caltech wind tunnel.

Flavio Suva
Engineer
Flavio performed 3D PIV for his Bachelor project at Caltech.

Albéric Gros
Marketing & Sales at WindShape
Albéric worked on the temperature effects on sweeping jets at Caltech for a Boeing flow control project.

Lionel Wilhelm
Engineer
Lionel first worked on Lattice-Boltzmann methods before turning his attention towards supersonic flows for the swiss space shuttle system.

Quentin Corthésy
Engineer
Quentin investigated the measurement of force using 3D PIV data.
2015

Guillaume Catry
WindShape CEO
Guillaume designed and manufactured the first prototype of a drone wind facility. He then founded WindShape.

Mark Vujicic
Pilatus Test Pilot
Mark designed a rocket nozzle cooling jacket for the Swiss Propulsion Laboratory (SPL) during his semester project, and then moved to Caltech for his Bachelor thesis to work on the implementation of sweeping jets on a propeller.

Justin Mercier
Engineer
Justin studied the effet of sweeping jets on a Boeing 757 vertical stabilizer.

Luca Bardazzi
Co-founder and Research Engineer at WindShape
For his Bachelor project, Luca Bardazzi designed and built from scratch a working underwater drone for the Norwegian company Water Linked.

Gustavo Rios
Engineer at Meggitt
Gutavo developed a new instrument for calibrating pressure sensors at high frequencies.

Ricardo Monteiro
Engineer
Ricardo setup a 3D PIV system.
2014

Gautier Rouaze
Software Engineer at JJ Cooling Technologies
Gautier worked on a the unsteady flow around a plate using a Kuka robot, PIV, and a high speed camera in a towing tank that he designed.

Damien Fulliquet
Engineer
Damien studied the effect of sweeping jets on a propeller based on NACA 0012 airfoils in the Caltech large wind tunnel facility.

Yann Glauser
Engineer
Yann developed a valve for sweeping jets to be mounted on a Boeing 757 tail.

Antonio Duarte
Engineer
Antonio developed a methodology for visualizing aerodynamic flows with helium-filled soap bubbles.
2013

Maxime Petitpierre
Swiss A320 Pilot
Maxime has done his Bachelor project on trying to improve the aerodynamics of the senseFly drone.

Mylèna Bouchardy
Instrument Technician
Mylèna worked on setting up a 3D PIV system.

Mohamed Sarikaya
Engineer
Mohamed designed and built the driving system for the towing tank carriage.
2012

Benjamin Vial
Engineer
Benjamin has designed and built a mechanical stand to study rotating propellers with flow injection and did his work at Caltech.

Loic Valélian
Engineer
Loic designed the power system for a rotating propeller.
2011

Aidan Jungo
Research Engineer at CFS Engineering
Aidan worked on the optimization of Mavic bicycle wheel CXR80 with a water model in a towing tank.

Bassem Sudki
Research Engineer
Bassem designed a 3 DOF spherical joint for underwater propulsion.

Fabien Crisinel
Engineer
Fabien performed experiments on a bio-inspired 3 degree of freedom propeller .

David Craquelin
Engineer
David designed a mechanical device to probe oxygen content based on paramagnetism.

Sébastien Robatel
Engineer
Sébastien studied the feasibility of a hydraulic cavitation tunnel.
2010

Jérôme Herpich
R&D Manager at Symbios
Jérôme designed and developed a 6 DOF system for testing flapping wings fro hydrodynamic propulsion.

Cuong N. Duong
Senior Manager at Accenture
Cuong programmed a 6 DOF robot and ran PIV on a flapping penguin-like actuator for his EPFL Master’s thesis.

Colas Jacquemet
Engineer at ONERA - Modane
Colas studied the aerodynamics of dirigibles.
2009

Pierre Munier
Research Engineer at PLS Fluid Dynamics
Pierre was one of the most brilliant students at hepia. He designed the full data acquisition interface for the wind tunnel, and then moved to DLR Göttingen in the group of Markus Raffel for his Master’s thesis, where he performed the highest resolution PIV on a helicopter blade.

Grégory Sokolowski
Engineer
Grégory developed a honeycomb for a vertical wind tunnel in order to straighten the flow for the aerodynamic characterization of volcanic rocks (University of Geneva, Professor Costanza Bonadona).