First‑
Principles
Engineering

A first-principles engineer.

I am a third-year Mechanical Engineering (Honours) student at QUT with an Aerospace Minor. My approach to engineering is grounded in first principles: I decompose systems into their load paths, failure modes, and energy flows before touching any software, then validate analytically before committing to FEA or CAD.

My technical work spans structural analysis, fatigue modelling, kinematics, aerodynamics, and thermodynamics: the same first-principles physics that governs thermal management and energy flow in any high-density system, whether that is a turbine, a weld group, or a data centre. I maintain a deep interest in Australian sovereign defence capability and the engineering behind platforms that define it, and an equal interest in the physical constraints now reshaping energy infrastructure: the power density, cooling, and grid-capacity limits behind the AI buildout. I want to contribute directly to programmes like the MQ-28A Ghost Bat and AUKUS Pillar II advanced capabilities, or to the structural and thermal engineering problems facing energy majors and infrastructure consultancies as demand scales.

Outside coursework, I am one of two aerostructural leads on a QUT Aerospace Society design team developing a twin-boom, push-pull, fully autonomous racing UAV from blank-sheet conceptual design. I led configuration trade studies across propulsion layouts, tail arrangements, and airframe architectures, and drove the airfoil selection process evaluating Selig, Eppler, Drela, and NACA families at Re ~110k, ultimately recommending NACA 4412. Current work covers aerodynamic sizing methodology and early CAD. Next phases: OpenVSP validation, ANSYS structural FEA, and prototype fabrication with ArduPilot integration.