Tom-Robin Teschner

In recognition of the calibre of his PhD, his drive and contribution to the University, we congratulate Tom-Robin Teschner, winner of the 2019 Lord Kings Norton Medal.

"My fascination for aerospace started when I was a little child and so it was quite natural, when I came to university age, to study aerospace science.

"During my master’s I realised that Cranfield has facilities for aerospace application that aren't available at other universities. This, together with the mindset and expertise of the staff, gives a unique research environment, which is why I returned to Cranfield for my PhD.

“We cannot investigate a full-scale aircraft through experiments and in wind tunnels, so computational fluid dynamics (CFD) provides additional insight. There is a great need to improve algorithms and solvers to get more accurate and faster results to calculate drag and optimise aircraft fuel efficiency, which ultimately helps to reduce the environmental impact, operational costs and ticket prices for air travel.

“My achievement in the PhD was to take an existing solver and make it 200 times faster by reformulating the equations.

“Industry increasingly needs skills in different CFD software packages. During my PhD I volunteered to learn the new software packages and, based on my training, I designed a new short course for Cranfield’s master’s students, which is also used for industry participants.

“As a PhD student you can feel lonely because there is no cohort like on a master’s course. As a research representative on Senate we helped develop the Cranfield Doctoral Network, bringing researchers together through seminars and student-led events such as pub quizzes.”

Named after Lord Kings Norton, Cranfield’s first Chancellor, this medal is the only prize awarded across all doctorate students at the University.