Faculty appointment (2021)

The MAE Department is pleased to welcome Xian Shi to our faculty as an assistant professor. He earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2017. His research seeks to enable next-generation energy conversion and propulsion technologies through studying the fundamental physics and chemistry of reacting flows and materials. Shi was most recently a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, where he led research in detonation dynamics and kinetics and its realization in miniaturized power devices such as rotating detonation engines. 

He also studies carbon nanoparticles and quantum dots through the lens of soot formation in flames. His Ph.D. work at UC Berkeley focused on understanding composition-inhomogeneous reacting flow and abnormal high-pressure physics in reciprocating engines. 

Shi has won the Starkman and the Hamilton Fellowships from UC Berkeley, as well as the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award.