Luis Gonzalez

He obtained both his MSc and his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the Caltech, where he studied diverse Solid Mechanics problems with a thesis on Fracture Mechanics of laminated composite structures as part of NASA’s High Speed Civil Transport program.

After graduating he joined the Composites Research Department of Airbus in Bristol, UK, where he was in charge of developing stress analysis methods, policies and directives for composite structures (used in the certification of the Airbus A380 or in the design of the military transport A400M).

Later Dr. Gonzalez moved to the Airbus Future Projects Office. Within the Overall Aircraft Design division he participated in the conceptual and preliminary definition and assessment of aircraft to succeed the A320. That work took him to Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France, first, as a member of a multidisciplinary team responsible for the design and study of a counter-rotating open rotor new short range aircraft and later, as a chief of the analysis for low speed aerodynamics and performance of the A320 NEO.

In 2011 he joined Embry Riddle’s Aerospace Engineering Faculty. Since then he has been teaching and conducting research on aircraft design, establishing collaborations with industrial partners such as Boeing, Dassault and Gulfstream. Some of the projects he has been involved are a study for the improvement of performance with winglets, the analysis of takeoff aerodynamic performance using dimensional analysis, more-electric aircraft architectures and their impact on overall efficiency, overall aircraft design and the study of structural concepts for high performance future airplanes.
He is the director of Embry Riddle’s Dassault Design Institute, AIAA’s Faculty Advisor and a private pilot.