Admission

Postdoctoral Positions

Interested postdoc candidates should email Prof. Suo Yang to express your interest in CRFEL.

Prospective Ph.D. Students

Prospective Ph.D. students should apply for admission to the Ph.D. program in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (UMN) before the deadline of December 1st every yearME Graduate Admissions. Interested students should email Prof. Suo Yang to express your interest in CRFEL. 

Typically, at least one new Ph.D. position is available with CRFEL each year.

Prospective Undergraduate Students

CRFEL generally employs at least one University of Minnesota-Twin Cities undergraduate student during the summer as an undergraduate research assistant. In addition, Prof. Yang is always happy to advise undergraduate independent work during the academic year. Please contact Prof. Yang for further information.

Prospective Visitors

We are open to host visiting students and scholars. Interested individuals should email Prof. Suo Yang.

Requirements

  • Solid background in thermo-fluids & numerical methods.
  • Strong computer programming (C++ and/or FORTRAN 90, object-oriented programming) skills are required. 
  • Previous experience with high-performance parallel computing (HPC) is desired but not necessary for students. 
  • For both Ph.D. and visiting students, strong academic background (GPA and ranking) is required.
  • For postdocs and visitor scholars, strong publication record as a first author in peer-reviewed journal articles is required.
  • High motivation and interests.

Application Materials

  • A detailed academic CV (including a list of publications if applicable).
  • Transcripts and certificates of ranking (required for students, but not required for postdoc or visitor scholar positions).
  • A brief statement that highlights the research interests and skills.
  • One to three publications/reports/slides/posters that you are most proud of. For postdocs and visitor scholars, only publications are acceptable.
  • Contact details of two/three references.

About UMN and ME

UMN is located in Minneapolis/St. Paul (i.e., Twin Cities), which is the 13th largest metropolitan area in the United States with very convenient transportation, life, and job opportunities. A lot of Fortune 500 companies and 17 headquarters of them reside in the Twin Cities area. The Twin Cities area has the 6th highest median household income among all metro areas in the United States.

UMN is ranked 8th in research among all public universities in the United States according to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Survey of Research and Development and the Springer Nature Index in 2019. UMN faculty and alumni have won 25 Nobel Prizes (30 if including researchers), which is ranked 2nd among all public universities in the nation (right behind UC-Berkeley). The Engineering program at UMN is ranked 4th in the United States according to College Choice (2018). Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) is one of the top 5 university-owned supercomputer centers in the nation. UMN also has the top 20 highest number of leading scholars among all research institutes in the world, based on the PLOS citation data over the past two decades.

The most recent Assessment of Doctoral Programs performed by the National Research Council (NRC) ranked the UMN ME department well within the top 10% of all ME doctoral programs in the United States, and by its “R-ranking,” as high as 7th out of 163 ME doctoral programs in the country. This ranking is rigorously determined, based upon the research output of our faculty and graduate students. The department has been ranked 1st in heat transfer for more than half century since the arrival of Prof. Ernst G. Eckert in Minnesota in 1951. Prof. Suhas V. Patankar (the CFD pioneer who invented SIMPLE algorithm) also worked at UMN ME until his retirement.