Jacob聽Needels
Senior Member Of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories
Livermore, California, United States
Summary
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Rockstar馃帗
Top SchoolJacob Needels is a Senior Member of Technical Staff and Aeronautics & Astronautics PhD who applies seven years of hands-on software and systems engineering to hypersonics, thermochemical nonequilibrium CFD, and design optimization. He develops and maintains high-performance C++ CFD code (notably contributions to the widely used open-source SU2 suite) and builds probabilistic surrogate models using Gaussian Process Regression for robust high-speed vehicle design. His background spans national labs, NASA systems engineering for Mars Sample Return risk assessment, industry hypersonics work, and patent strategy for deep-tech ventures鈥攍inking rigorous research to practical deployment and IP strategy. Based in Livermore, CA, he combines deep domain modeling (chemistry, vibrational relaxation, viscous effects) with software craftsmanship and a track record of turning complex physics into verifiable, production-ready code.
7 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Mechanical Engineering at University of California, DavisDoctor of Philosophy - PhD Aeronautics and Astronautics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University
English, Spanish
Github Skills (8)
fluid-dynamics10
cfengine10
c-language10
cfc10
physics10
cprogramming-language10
cfml10
open-source8
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
su2code/SU2
Jan 2021 - Jan 2023
SU2: An Open-Source Suite for Multiphysics Simulation and Design
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:81 reviews, 229 commits, 22 PRs in 2 years
Contributions summary:Jacob implemented and refined source residual terms for the NEMO axisymmetric simulation, modifying code within `SU2_CFD/src/solvers/CNEMOEulerSolver.cpp` and `SU2_CFD/src/numerics/NEMO/NEMO_sources.cpp`. Their contributions involved adding and fixing code for chemistry and vibrational energy relaxation computations, as well as improvements regarding viscous calculations for the same simulation type. They also cleaned up and improved code organization.
physicsmultiphysics-simulationpythoncfdsnl-applications
python-cfd/SU2
Aug 2021 - Sep 2021
SU2: An Open-Source Suite for Multiphysics Simulation and Design
Contributions:11 commits in 16 days
multiphysics-simulationmultiphysicssimulationsu2modeling-tool
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